Books in Various Formats

Try these methods to find a specific book, whether it’s a physical copy, an e-book, or an audiobook.

Search for books

Use Library Catalog Search to look for a book at the library.

You can narrow your search by author, subject, format, language, and more when viewing your search results.

See our guide, Tips for Using Library Search, for strategies on how to search, view, and refine results, or watch our video on searching the catalog.

With physical items, you can place requests for item pick up or delivery using the Get This link in the item record.

Get ebooks and audiobooks

To find e-books or digitized books, make sure the “Available online” option is selected as you view your search results. You can also choose this option in advanced search mode.

Search results will generally include audiobook versions when they’re available. For best results, we recommend filtering your search by format to show only “Audio (spoken word).”

See our guide, Finding and Using Electronic Books, for a list of our licensed ebook and audiobook collections (including OverDrive) and how to troubleshoot common problems.

Get books from outside of U-M

If we don’t have the book you’re looking for, we can request it for you from another library system and deliver it using interlibrary loan. See our guidance on using other catalogs.

Specialty formats and accessibility. We provide accessible copies to patrons whose disabilities prevent them from reading or using print materials.