Books
FRANCIS NExpress BLC Virtual Catalog WorldCat
FRANCIS
FRANCIS, the Williams College Libraries' online catalog contains all the books and other materials that the Libraries purchase. Use it to search for a specific author or title or to compile a bibliography on a specific topic. Williams uses Library of Congress Subject Headings. To find books on a particular subject, use the Keyword search option. Then look at the subjects under which it has been cataloged to find additional items on the subject.
NExpress
NExpress is the easiest way to get a book if you can't find it in FRANCIS. After doing a FRANCIS search, you can click the "Repeat Your Search in NExpress" button to see if any of our partner institutions have the book (Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Northeastern, Wellesley).
Once you are in the NExpress interface, you can request the book using your Williams barcode, and it will be delivered to the Sawyer Circulation Desk in a few days. See the Borrowing Matrix for more info.
This consortium also allows in-person borrowing among members. You may borrow many materials from these libraries by presenting your Williams ID while visiting these schools.
BLC Virtual Catalog
The BLC Virtual Catalog is the combined catalog of many of the Boston Library Consortium Libraries, including Brown, Boston University, Northeastern University, the UMass system, Tufts, the Marine Biological Laboratory/Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution, Wellesley, and Williams. It also includes the Boston Public Library. You may request books that are not available at Williams through the Virtual Catalog. If the requested item is on the shelves at another BLC library, it will normally be delivered in three to five working days.
WorldCat
WorldCat is the combined catalog of more than 9,000 libraries in the U.S. and around the world. Most books located in WorldCat can be requested through NExpress (for fastest delivery), the BLC Virtual Catalog, or through ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan).