Search for French Bibliographic Records

Search INFO VDX

Do NOT search more than 15-20 targets at a time as this will affect system performance.

While you cannot limit a search by language in VDX there are other strategies you can employ to find French translations of English titles.

Use the Advanced screen to do a Boolean search (for fiction)
- Search for an author along with “roman” in the title
- Search for an author along with “romans” in the subject
Search in specific databases on INFO VDX
- Bibliothèque et Archives nationale du Québec – this is not a database with INFO library locations. But a search on popular authors will likely bring up a lot of French translations that you can use as your captured bib record. You can search it in VDX if you are logged in to either INFO VDX or INFO ZPORTAL.
- Hawkesbury, Bibliothéque publique de – a target with strong French content
- Ottawa Public Library – also with much French content.
- The OLS-North targets are likely to have a good percentage of their collections in French
  - Greater Sudbury Public Library
  - North Bay Public Library
  - Thunder Bay Public Library
  - Timmins Public Library
Search using French subject headings (see Find French Subject Headings)

Search Bibliothèque et Archives nationale du Québec

If you don’t have logon access to INFO VDX try searching the Bibliothèque et Archives nationale du Québec database on their site.

Go to http://www.banq.qc.ca
You can choose the English or French interface (top right) as you prefer
Click on “Catalogue Iris” on the top left.
Click again on "Catalogue Iris" in the top menu.
There is a "Help" or "Aide" button on this page that offers "how to's" and other explanations
This interface also allows for limiting search by language.

Search Bibliothèque nationale du France

The interface is currently only in French. Although an April 2005 notice says "All the content and main tools of the French Web site will be translated into English. You will be able to access all this information from links on the home page as well as the French pages of the site."

Go to: http://www.bnf.fr/
Choose “Catalogue BN OPALE PLUS” from the “Rechercher” menu
Choose the search criterion. If you do not understand French:
Auteur is Author, Titre is Title, Sujet is Subject, “commence par” means “beginning with”, “contient le(s) mot(s)” means “contains the word(s)”
Enter your search in the “Recherche” box
Click on the “Rechercher” button

Search AMICUS

Search AMICUS on its own web site (not via INFO VDX) to limit results by language. This will give you titles that you can then search for in INFO VDX or to create a new request using the AMICUS bib data.

Go to:
http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/aaweb/aalogine.htm or
http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/aaweb/aaloginf.htm
Click on “Search AMICUS”
Click on “Advanced Search”
Choose “Entire AMICUS database”
Choose “Name Browse” and enter the author name in reverse order.
Choose language “French” from the pop-up menu
Click on “Submit” (you may have slightly better luck with “last name, first name” format)

The AMICUS advanced search screen looks like this

That will get you to the name index like this.

Click on the appropriate entry to get to the records.

Find French Subject Headings

When searching for French non-fiction titles try AMICUS (see Search AMICUS) to find French subject headings.

Search using the English subject heading and limit the search to French language. You may have better luck searching the “National Libraries Collections” to find French and English subject headings in the same record.

View some of the records that come up to find the equivalent French subject heading.

For example a subject search on “wild flowers” in AMICUS brought up this record with both English & French subject headings. You can then do a subject search on “fleurs sauvages” in INFO VDX or AMICUS to find French titles.

Southern Ontario Library Service