So one day you are feeling particularly hardworking and decide to enter the library and do some searching of books. It is very simple. As like NUS, there is an online cataloge.
Difference starts here. Firstly you can search for the author's name but you will never get the particular author you are searching for. For example, you look for Smith, your results will have one Smith and about ten George and Brown. Fine. Search by title. You type in "Globalization and Resistence" which is the exact title of the book. Your search result ends up as,
"10 results for Globalization"
"1 results for Resistence"
You click on Resistence and obviously the result isn't your book. Because for the word "resistence" to appear as in a book title, unlike what the Lancaster online cataloge might suggest, IS NOT THAT UNCOMMON.
Right. So after trying countless combinations and permutations of keywords, you finally find the book on the catalogue! Success! Even better news! The book is "On Shelf"! This is excellent news. You happily jot down the location and call number of the book and run off to find it!
Except the library's system of call numbers is BRILLIANT. QA-QB is NOT next to QBa-QC in fact QY-QYp is! When the shelf says "Journals" it actually contains oversized books! The journals are two shelves away under "Books"! And infact, QAxxx books are NOT shelved in the shelves marked QA-QB but are infact in the next shelf whish is happily marked as Y-YB!
Brilliant!
Finally! After painstakingly searching the entire Q and Y section, you find the particular shelf with books of the call number you are looking for. And finally finally!!!
THE BOOK IS NOT THERE.
There are supposed to be 3 copies of it.
Other books with same/similar call number are shelved there.
Online catalogue says "on shelf"
THE BOOK IS NOT THERE.
Let me repeat,
THE BOOK IS NOT THERE.
By the way, the books with same/similar call numbers are useless to you, because they aren't of the same topic.
Repeat this process 10 times.
Treasure the NUS library system please.