Tools
Using the Library Catalog
The King County Library System catalog provides easy computer-based access to nearly 15 million items. Learn how to make the most of this valuable resource.
Your Account Info | Renew Items | Holds | Account Information | Check Out History | My Lists | Basic Search Tips | Advanced Search | Catalog Media Icons
Your Account Info
There are a couple ways to login to Your Account. From the main KCLS website, www.kcls.org select the green Log In To Your Account link in the upper right corner of the page.
If you are already in the KCLS catalog, select the blue Your Account Log In link in the upper right corner of the page.
Once you are at the Your Account Log In page, enter your Card Number or User Name, and PIN in the appropriate fields.
Select the blue Log in button and your browser will ask if you would like to remember your Log in information.
If you would like your computer to remember your Card Number or Username and PIN, select "Remember", this will eliminate the need for you to enter your entire Card Number or Username and PIN each time you log in to your account.
If you do not want your information saved select either "Never for This Site" or "Not Now".
The above example is using Mozilla Firefox as the internet browser. The prompt to remember your log in information will vary with the internet browser you are using. Other common internet browsers are Google Chrome, and Windows Internet Explorer.
Once you have logged in you may review your account information, place holds, renew items, create lists and much more.
Renew Items
You may renew items after logging in to your account.
Step 1. Log in to library account with your library card number/username and PIN. Your Account Summary should be displayed.
Click on Items Checked Out.
Step 2. To renew all checked out items, check the TITLE/AUTHOR box and choose Renew Selected Items.
To renew only specific items, select items you’d like to renew and click Renew Selected Items.
You will be asked to confirm your renewals, select OK.
Step 3. Check to see if renewals were successful. New due dates will
be displayed.
Renewal periods
DVD’s, videos and magazines: 1 week
Books, compact disks and cassettes: 4 weeks
Please note—items may not renew for the following reasons:
- Other patrons have placed holds on them.
- Your fines exceed $10.
- They have already been renewed twice.
Thank you for completing this tutorial. Please use our other tutorials for further help.
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Holds
Check Holds | Modify Holds | Holds Exceptions
Check Holds
Items on hold can be canceled or suspended while you are logged into Your Account. To suspend or cancel items in your holds list, follow these steps:
Step 1. Log in to Your Account with your library card number/username and PIN.
Step 2. Click on the Holds tab to view your holds list.
Step 3. On the holds list, select the items you would like to take action on using the check boxes to the left of the title, select the action from the Actions drop down menu and click Save. In this example we are suspending the selected items.
Actions you may select from the drop down menu are:
Suspend* – This action will prevent the hold from being filled, while other holds will continue to fill until the person with the suspended hold reaches as high as second in line.
Activate – This action will activate any holds you have previously suspended, allowing your hold to move up the hold line again and be filled.
Set Active Date – This action allows you to set the date for your item to automatically activate.
Cancel – This action will cancel your hold.
Another way to modify the status of your holds is through the Edit link located to the right of the item. Once your Edit link is activated you may change the pick-up location, suspend the hold, select a date to activate your hold and adjust the cancel if not filled by date** for your hold. After your have edited your hold, click on Save.
*A hold cannot be modified once it has a “Ready for Pick-up” status and you will need to call your branch for assistance.
**A hold will have an automatic “Cancel if not filled by” date of two years from the date it is placed on hold.
Holds History – Not Available Yet
- Holds cannot be placed on items you currently have checked out. Once the item is checked in you may add it again as a hold.
- Patrons with full privileges may place a maximum of 25 holds.
- Fines must be $10.00 or under in order to check out holds ready for pick up.
- Patrons with an address in the Seattle city limits may not place holds on KCLS items; please see the KCLS-SPL Reciprocal Use Borrowing Agreement for more information.
- At this time holds can only be placed one at a time. Our batch holds feature is still under development. Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for completing the tutorial. Please use our other tutorials for further assistance.
Account Information and Preferences
Personal Information – Allows you to update information such as your address, username and email.
Search Preferences – Allows you to adjust the result pages of your search.
Personal Information
Step 1. Log in to Your Account with your library card number/username* and PIN.
Step 2. Click on the Account Info & Preferences tab to view your Account Information.
Step 3. Select the Change link to update your information.
Step 4. Fill in the new information and click the Submit button. In this example we are updating the email address. Changes to personal information will be authenticated by staff.
*Currently the username is only available for use while logging into Your Account in the library catalog. Usernames are not yet valid for use at self check-out, public computers, database or download services until further notice.
Search Preferences
In the Search Preferences area of your Account Info & Preferences tab, you can set the Search hits per page, increasing or decreasing the number of results that appear by when searching the library catalog. This preference is available when you are searching the catalog while logged into Your Account. Select the number of Search hits per page from the drop down box and click Save.
Thank you for completing the tutorial. Please use our other tutorials for further assistance.
Check Out History
The Check Out History keeps track of every item that you have checked out and returned. In order to use this feature you must activate your Checkout History in your Account Preferences tab.
Once you are logged into your Account, select the Account Preferences tab, and select the Search Preferences option below it.
To activate the checkout history, select the box to the right of "Keep history of checked out items" and select the blue Save button. At anytime you may stop the system from recording checkout history by removing the checkmark from the box. This will delete your entire checkout history from your account.
Once you have selected to remember your Check Out History your list will begin populating in the Items Checked Out tab.
Your Check Out History will display in order of the date the items were checked out. Select the Previous and Next links at the bottom of the screen to navigate through the pages of your Check Out History.
My Lists
Create a List | Share a List | Add Items to a List | Multiple Holds & Temporary List | Actions for Your List
The My Lists section allows you to create, edit, share, and remove lists.
Lists of items can be used for a number of purposes. For example, to keep track of what books you have read or books you would like to read.
Step 1. Log in to Your Account with your library card number/username* and PIN, click on the My Lists tab.
Step 2. Click on the +Add a List link.
Step 3. Enter the name for your list into the text box and choose if you would like to share the contents of the list with other users, and click the Submit button.
You can give the address of your List to anyone you want to share it with. In the My Lists section, there is a Share link for every shared List. Bookmark this link in your browser or copy and paste the address to share your List.
What does "Share this list" mean?
Lists can either be private, and only viewable by you; or public, and viewable by anyone who knows where the list resides. By default, all lists are private, and you must explicitly instruct the system to allow others to view the contents of a list. You can elect to share a list from Your Account area, My List section.
Add items to your List
If you are already logged in, you can add any item to a List by clicking the ADD TO MY LIST button, after you have selected the items for your list you can manage those items in the My Lists tab in Your Account area as shown above.
Multiple Holds & Temporary List
If you create a list to place Multiple Holds before logging into your account you have created a Temporary List. After you have placed the holds you must save the items to a new list in the account or delete the items before ending your session.
Add items to my list from the catalog to place multiple holds at one time. Select desired items in the list and choose Place hold on selected.
You will be prompted to enter your account information. After logging in you will receive a pop up message regarding the hold results.
After you are logged in you can either create a New List and move the temporary items to the New List or Remove the items from the Temporary List. If you do not save or remove the items from the Temporary List it will be present for the entire browser session even if you log on with another account.
For assistance with Adding/Moving and Removing items from My Lists see the following My List tutorial.
Actions for your List
There are a variety of actions available to manage your Lists. To Place Holds, Remove or Move items between lists select the box to the left of the item, choose the appropriate Action from the drop down box and click Save.
Thank you for completing the tutorial. Please use our other tutorials for further assistance.
Basic Search Tips
Search Term Box | Search Selector | Format | Limit by Library
The Basic Search is located at the top of the screen as you navigate through the catalog.
Basic Search is separated into 4 parts to assist patrons in finding material that is relevant to their search.
Type your search terms in this box to find material you are looking for.
There are several search indexes available to assist you in your search as explained below.
Search Selector
The Search selector drop down menu is divided into several subjects.
Keyword— The most simplistic search selector, keyword search looks for terms in any field of the record. The words entered in this searh may show up in fields including title, author, subject, publisher, song title and many more. These types of searches will retrieve large result sets. This type of search is helpful if you don’t know the exact title or author of an item. For example, “Goblet Rowling”.
Title— A title search finds the terms you enter in the title of an item. For example, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”.
Author— An author search finds the terms you enter in the author of an item. For example, “J.K. Rowling”.
Subject— A subject search finds the terms you enter in the subject of an item. Subjects are categories assigned to items according to a system such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings. For example, “Wizards Fiction”
Series— A series search finds the terms you enter in the title of a multi-part series. For Example “Harry Potter 4” *The Series search is still under development at this time. Thank you for your patience.
Call Number – Finds the call number you enter in the call number of an item.
*The Call Number index in the Basic Search is currently not working. You may use this feature in the Advanced Search page. Thank you for your patience.
Limit your search to a specific format by selecting one of the choices in the Format drop down menu.
Limit your search to items only from your local branch by selecting a location in the KCLS community library drop down menu.
Advanced Search
Search Input | Search Filters | Sort Criteria | Search Library | Advanced Search Tips
Search Input
You may use one or many of the search options simultaneously by selecting them from the search term drop down menu. Additionally, you may limit the results with the Contains, Does not contain and Matches exactly drop down menu. If you would like to add more than three search options select the "ADD SEARCH ROW" button.
Keyword—finds the terms you enter anywhere in the entire record for an item, including title, author, subject, and other information.
Title—finds the terms you enter in the title of an item.
Author—finds the terms you enter in the author of an item.
Subject—finds the terms you enter in the subject of an item. Subjects are categories assigned to items according to a system such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
Series—finds the terms you enter in the title of a multi-part series.
Boolean operators such as the, and, or, not, of are not considered special and are searched for just like any other word. There are no "stop" words that are automatically ignored by the search engine.
Wildcard - You may use "*" as a wildcard when it is applied to other letters, for example ca* for cat, cap, car etc. You cannot use "*" by itself.
Search Filters
You can filter your search by Item Type and Language. The Add More Filters creates a more detailed menu to choose from. For each filter type, you may select multiple criteria by holding down the CTRL key as you click on the options. If nothing is selected for a filter, the search will return results as though all options are selected.
Sort Criteria
By default, the search results are in order of greatest to least relevance. In the sort criteria box you may select to order the search results by relevance, title, author, or publication date.
Search Library
If you are using a catalog in a library or accessing a library’s online catalog from its homepage, the search will return items for the entire King County Library System. You may change your search to limit to a specific branch by selecting the library from the drop down box.
Limit to Available
Select Limit to Available to view items currently in the branches on the shelves in the collection indicated. Items currently checked-out by other patrons will not be displayed.
Boolean Search terms...
&& use this for AND. If you want elephant AND swiss to show up in your results enter elephant && swiss. Both terms must be present to appear in your search results.
|| (hyphenated vertical symbol above the backslash on the keyboard) use this for OR. If you want elephant OR swiss to show up in your results enter elephant || swiss. Either term must be present to be in your search results.
- use this for NOT. Currently -(aka NOT) only works in subject searches.
Title begins with...
If you change your search from Keyword to Title and wrap your search in “” and use the ^ it will create a title begins with search.
For example, change keyword to title search “^Harry Potter” it will give back only items that have titles that start with Harry Potter.
Left and Right Phrase Anchors
The search must start with this word. ^ use this to left anchor a search. For example title: "^star" means the title must start with star, if the title is The Star it won't find the item. For best results wrap your search in quotes.
The search must end with this word. $ use this to right anchor a search. For example title: "justice$" means the title must end with the word justice. If the title has a subtitle the entire title must end with the word as it is searching the entire title field. For example if the title was Justice: For one and all it wouldn't find this title because the title really ends with "all" not "justice". For best results wrap your search in quotes.
Evergreen Technical Search Documentation
This is a document from Evergreen on how searches are constructed. http://www.evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=documentation:technical:search_grammar
Last Updated: July 16, 2012
