To obtain books, journal articles, films, or sound recordings which are not in our library catalogs you must place Interlibrary loan requests online.  Please allow yourself plenty of time when placing an ILL request.

1.  Gather a list of useful words or terms from lecture notes and/or assigned readings to begin your research in the CONSORT/Ohiolink web catalog and online journal indexes.  Books owned by other CONSORT libraries may be requested and will arrive in 4-5 working days.  If you cannot locate materials on your subject at Kenyon or all of the CONSORT copies of a book are checked out, you should search the OhioLINK & SearchOhio online card catalogs for additional materials. Books, and some bound volumes of journals, may be requested from any of our consortial partners using your barcode on the back of your student ID.

2.  Interlibrary Loan requests, for journal articles or books not in CONSORT or OhioLINK, may be filled out using our online form, if you need assistance filling out the form based on a citation you found or have a question about a journal abbreviation, etc. just stop by the Reference Desk for assistance.  Everyone has to create an ILIAD account to submit an Interlibrary Loan requests.  Select a password which is easy to remember, but not the same as your network or email account.  Your ILIAD account will remain yours to use during your career at Kenyon.

3.  Suggestion: Begin your research in Consort using simple WORD searches and take notes on the various subject headings listed for books which you find.  The subject headings may be towards the bottom of the catalog record for each item in our collection. If you need to focus the topic you are researching, simply click on the subject heading in a item's record and follow the link(s).  Subject headings often carry over from library catalogs to journal indexes, so it is useful to keep a running list of terms you glean from library catalogs and journal indexes.

example of a WORD search for books: (words do not have to appear in a specific order, depending on the database/catalog you may not have to link terms together with an 'and')

• courtly dance
• england and dance and history

example SAMPLE SUBJECT HEADING search for books: (subject headings are very specific terms and may be found in individual book and journal article records, usually towards the bottom of the record)

• france dance
• ​tallchief maria (note that you do not need to capitalize a name or use punctuation marks, but you MUST put last name first followed by first name)

NOTE: AUTHOR SEARCHES require that you list the last name of the author first, then the first name or initial.

4.  It is possible to refine your searches further if you are looking for video recordings or sound recordings, to mention just two limiting features. From a general search page select the 'limit/sort' or 'modify search' button at the top of the search screen and then click on the relevant search option(s).

example of how to narrow the scope of your search to material type

•  general search: ballet and history this search results in more than 400 items
• use the button at the top of the page to navigate an additonal menu and limit your search to films: ballet and history this limited search produces more than 25 items

WorldCat is a valuable resource for researchers as it often includes additional information on each item in the catalog (for instance book chapters, names of dancers or actors, etc.).  While many of the books listed in WorldCat may not reside at Kenyon, materials may be borrowed from consortial partners or requested through our Library's Interlibrary Loan office.  Searches may be conducted through keyword, author, subject, etc options and limited to material types if the search proves ungainly.  The types of materials include books, archival, serials, internet, sound, visual, and (in very limited numbers) articles.  This is not a journal article database.

research topic: dance company founded by Alvin Ailey

•            using keywords: ailey dance company I found more than 700 records spread across 6 material types
•            using the author: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater I found more than 400 records in 6 material types
•            using the subject search: Ailey, Alvin I found more than 1200 records