Try to use the "Title" value for searching. Since this field must be filled in when someone adds a book, you have a better chance of finding the book you are looking for.
If your word/phrase search doesn't find what you are looking for, try a less restrictive search. You can truncate your search key (ie Meta instead of Metamorphosis) to look for close matches and misspellings.
You can search by phrase and department at the same time by entering a value for both searches. For example, to find all books by Joyce used in the English department: select Title, enter Joyce in the field, and select English from the list of departments. Then click on either 'search by word' or 'search by department' to search the books.