Search the LibrarySearch Catalog:
Use the search box to perform a basic keyword searches. To perform an advanced search (which will let you limit your search by subject, title, or author), use the "More Search Options" link under the search box . Once you find a relevant book or two, look within those records for promising subject headings: click on one of them to perform a new search on that term to find more. Be sure to browse the shelves in the area where you find a promising book for more relevant titles.
Browse the Shelves by Library of Congress Classifications:
The following Library of Congress classifications may be useful when browsing at the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library for books on historical topics. Books with call numbers starting with ‘D’ are located the Lower Level. Books with ‘E’ and ‘F’ call numbers are located on the 2nd Floor.
• D World History including Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia
• E United States History (including colonial period)
• F United States Local History, Canada, Central & South America
What's wrong with Googling your topic? Google gives you 25,000,000 hits when you look for your topic.
Is a database better? Yes! It's easier to focus your search to your particular topic and limit your results to academic research.
First of all, start with a strategy:
- write the topic down in the form of a sentence or question
- identify the key concepts of the question
- try to think of at least one or two synonyms for each of these concepts
- if the database you are going to use has a thesaurus (index of subject headings), go there and search for the concepts and synonyms you have thought of. If related terms are suggested, review these, and possibly select and search a few.
- search each of your concepts separately (you can have 2 or more related terms in a concept)
- use the Boolean operators (and, or, not) to combine the results that you get in the previous step
If you are having trouble thinking of search terms, try making a table asking who, what, where, how, or when.
Results here are limited to books, ebooks, and book chapters.
Use the following databases to find scholarly and peer-reviewed articles on your topic.