What Do I Use Tripod For?

Tripod is the place to go when you're looking for books, dvds, cds, online databases or journal titles held by Haverford, Bryn Mawr, or Swarthmore.  It is the Trico Libraries' online catalog.  Everything we own or subscribe to should be in Tripod. 

How Do I Search Tripod?

Searching Tripod can be as basic as a one-keyword search.  If you don't know the name of the book you're looking for, try starting with one or two keywords that relate to your topic.  For example, if you search for ""medical research" and animals", this is what your results will look like:

1   Specious science : how genetics and evolution reveal why medical research on animals harms humans / : BMC 2002

2   The ethical dimensions of the biological and health sciences / [edited by] Ruth Ellen Bulger, Elizab : HC 2002

3   Why animal experimentation matters : the use of animals in medical research / edited by Ellen Franke : HC 2001

4   Salts of silver, toned with gold : the Harrison D. Horblit collection of early photography / by Anne : BMC 1999

5   Birth to death : science and bioethics / edited by David C. Thomasma and Thomasine Kushner : HC 1996

6   Subjected to science : human experimentation in America before the Second World War / Susan E. Leder : BMC 1995

7   Ethical issues in research / edited by Darwin Cheney : SC 1993

Each result is listed in order of relevance, and after the title are the initials of the school that owns the book.  The next column is the date of publication, and the icon on the right tells you whether the item is a book, a video, an e-book, etc.  From here you can click on a title to get more information.  Try clicking on one of the results.  You'll find that newer books usually include chapter titles and summaries, so you can get a quick feel for how appropriate the book is for your research.  Also, take a look at the subject headings listed below the call number and tables of contents.  For example, for the third book in this list, the following subjects are listed:

Subject	Animal experimentation -- Moral and ethical aspects
	Animal models in research -- Moral and ethical aspects
	Medicine -- Research -- Moral and ethical aspects
	Animal welfare -- Moral and ethical aspects

Each of these subjects is a category assigned by a librarian to help classify the book and compare it to others in our catalog.  Clicking on the subject heading will search for other books on the same subject.  Right now we have 19 books in the Trico that are specifically about the moral and ethical aspects of animal experimentation!

There are extra techniques for searching Tripod that might help you get better results.  Notice in my search above that I searched for "medical research" inside the quotes so I would get only results where those two words appeared together.  Another technique is using a truncation symbol (*) to get all variations on a word.  For example, I could have searched for ""medical research" and animal*" and Tripod would have searched for animal and animals.


If you know what you're looking for, try a title or title/author search.  When performing a title search use the exact title minus the initial article (a, an, or the).  For example, to search for the title Frankenstein, choose title from the first drop-down menu, enter 'Frankenstein,' and hit enter.  From here you'll see a results screen, and you'll see that there are in fact several copies of Frankenstein in the Trico, and more than just books.    You can limit your search to just books by clicking on the "limit/sort search" button above the search box.  Remember, title searches in Tripod also search chapter titles if they are cataloged.

What Do I Do If the Book I Want Is Not At Haverford?

If the book you want is checked out or only available at Bryn Mawr or Swarthmore, try requesting a copy from another library.  Click on the orange request button at the top of the screen, enter your name, barcode, and library you want it delivered to, and hit go.  Choose the item you want to request and hit the request button.  Your book should be delivered within about a day.

If all copies of the book are checked out, your other option is EZBorrow.  EZBorrow searches most academic libraries in Pennsylvania and books ordered this way usually arrive in about three days.

Logging in to Tripod

By logging in to Tripod you gain access to information about your account such as your reading history, the books you've got checked out, and any interlibrary loans you've requested.