Butler Media Center Finding Guide

The purpose of this guide is to provide examples of the various ways to search for visual formats using CLIO. Videorecordings, laserdiscs and DVD's (digital versatile discs) held in the Butler Media collection are catalogued in CLIO and searchable by title, author and subject.

IMPORTANT: CLIO is available in two versions, Telnet and Web. If you choose to work with the telnet version, enter the searches as illustrated below. If you select to work with the Web version, select the search type by clicking on one of the options listed and enter the TERMS ONLY in the search box.

Titles with the location Butler Media circulate overnight.
Titles with the location Butler-Media Reserves circulate for one week to officers and PhD students with semester loan privileges.
The Butler Media collection circulates from the Butler Reserves Desk, 208 Butler Library.

Title Search

If you know the title of the film you are looking for, enter a title search. Search results will either take you directly to the bibliographic record that matches the title search or retrieve a listing of title matches. If the film is owned by the library, the title will be followed by the word < visual >. Select the entry to see the full bibliographic record and the item's location and call number. Example: t=sunset boulevard

Author Search

If you are looking for works by a specific director, producer or screenwriter, enter an author search. Example: a=wilder, billy

Subject Search

Film formats are assigned subject headings, similar to books. If you are looking for works in a particular genre or on a topical subject, enter a subject search. The following are examples of subject headings frequently used in cataloging videorecordings, laserdiscs and DVD's.
feature films | comedy films | documentary films | biographical films | gangster films | war films | |foreign films|
Example: s=feature films
For additional subject headings, see the Library of Congress Subject Headings, copies of which are in Butler Reference and other reference departments within Columbia University Libraries.

Foreign Film Titles

Subject searching also allows you to retrieve listings of foreign film titles. If you are interested in seeing a list of Spanish films held in the collection, try s=motion pictures, spanish. For French films, try s=motion pictures, french. You can also limit language by using keyword search. If you are interested in seeing a list of Spanish language films, try a keyword search k=f.fmt. spa.la.

Keyword Search

Keyword searching is useful for identifying visual formats in CLIO. Use keyword to perform the following.
Limit by format.

Using a keyword search, you can limit by format. You can limit a search to retrieve only book titles, or serial titles, music and sound and film formats. To limit to film formats, use f.fmt. Example: To locate films featuring Gregory Peck,
try k=gregory peck f.fmt.

Link terms

Use keyword to link terms from different parts of a record, such as an author, screenwriter or director's name with a word from a film title or a subject heading. Example: To locate the film entitled Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf based on the play written by Edward Albee try, k=albee.au. virginia.ti. f.fmt.

Search LON view

Look for a word or combination of words anywhere in a record, not just in the author, title, subject or call number fields. This is useful for identifying actors and their films. Actors are usually credited in note fields located in the long view of the CLIO record and are not searchable by author. Use keyword and check the long view by typing lon. Example: To locate feature films starring Robert De Niro try,k=de niro feature films or k=de niro f.fmt.

Display list of DVD titles

If you would like to see a list of DVD titles, try k=dvd.
If you would like to see films directed by Martin Scorsese on DVD try, k=scorsese.au. dvd