Google Books can be a great way to search within scanned books, or to preview books before you decide to buy or borrow them. You can also search selected magazines and newspapers through the Google Books search. Keep in mind, though, that the selection of books included in Google Books is somewhat random, and the amount of text you can preview may be very limited. That said, you can use some of the same advanced search techniques used for web searching here to precisely target your search.

Perhaps you've found something that looks promising, but the amount of content you can preview is limited. Locating the book in a nearby library is easy. Click on Get this book, and then use the Zip Code option or the Search WorldCat option that appears at the bottom of the page.

Once you arrive at the WorldCat page, you can see what libraries near you have the item and click on their names to search their catalogs for the item. Libraries are listed in order of their distance from your current location.

If the item is not at a URI library, you can request the item through Interlibrary Loan.