Quick Search can help you find our physical and digital materials.

By default, Quick Search will search by keyword

  • physical materials
  • e-books and digital articles
  • some Digital Collections images and files

Focus your search

If you already know what format, author, subject, or date range you want, try Advanced Search.

You can also search within specific types of collections including

If your search returns too many results, you can narrow your search using filters, located next to your search results. Learn more about search techniques.

Search beyond ISU

You can choose to include the physical materials from 8 additional Iowa college and university libraries. Many of these items are loanable, and often arrive faster than when you use interlibrary loan.

Still looking for materials?

We have a few other search tools you can try for specific formats.

  • Articles - search from a selected subject database from our Articles and Databases list
  • Photographs, maps, letters and other digital formats - search our Digital Collections
  • Digital videos and audio - search Aviary
  • Unique and special collections in our archives - search our online finding aids in CARDinal

Get materials from another library

If we don’t have access to a book, you can request it through interlibrary loan. After you set up an interlibrary loan account, you can use WorldCat to search for and automatically fill the request form for your item.

If we don’t have access to an article, you can request a digital copy through document delivery.

Get help

We’re here to help! Ask us for help if you have any trouble finding what you need.