PittCat is the main searching tool for all of the materials owned by the University Library System (ULS), including articles, books, ebooks, journal articles, ejournals, audio and video, digital images, government documents, microfilm and movies.

Pitt has large collections of ebooks, of which you can access the content 24/7...even if the libraries aren't open!  Here are a few tips to easily locate the full-text of our ebooks in PittCat.

First, do a search on your topic.  Once you have a results list on the screen, locate the Refine your search heading.  Under this heading, click on the Items with full text online and Items in the library catalog checkboxes.

If you like to play it on the safe side, you might also click on the ebook checkbox under the Content Type heading.

Phrase Searching - PittCat allows for phrase searching with the use of “  “. For example, the search "climate change" will find items with the phrase climate change in them.

Wildcard and Truncation – You can use wildcards (* and ?) symbols to search PittCat.

Advanced Searching - Check the Advanced Search for more tips and techniques to enhance your search, including Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT). Note: Boolean Operators must be entered in all uppercase/capital letters.

You can request material through PittCat using Get It, even for material that we do not own. You must be signed in and then click on the item you need. Options within the item:

If you have any questions about this, please contact us so we can work with you to try and get the material you need.