LibGuides at USA: SPE: Special Education: Finding Books

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SOUTHcat

To find books, government documents, and media items in USA Libraries' collections, use SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog. SOUTHcat does not include journal articles.

Catalog tips and tricks:
- Keyword searches – use quotation marks to hold phrases together ("special education")
- Truncation – use ? after the root of a word to find all its variants (educat? finds educate, education, educational...)
- Browse the Subject(s) field in records to find the right words for searches. (Example: Try doing a keyword search for "higher education," then look at the subject(s) field in several records. You’ll see that the subject term is "Education, higher." Click the subject heading to find more records with this subject.)
Revise and refine your searches.
Watch for repeating call numbers and browse stacks in that area.
Pay attention to the Location and Status fields. You will need this information to locate the item in the library.

Electronic Books

ProQuest Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
A collection of over 70,000 electronic books covering all academic disciplines. Pages from ebrary titles can be printed by using the InfoTools button and choosing Print. You can choose to print the current page, a range of pages (with the maximum number of pages being 60) or an entire chapter.

EBSCO eBook Collection
Formerly called NetLibrary 3. A collection of about 11,173 current electronic books. The checkout period for books from EBSCO is currently 7 days. In order to check out a book, you must create an account with EBSCO. Click on Sign In at the top right on the blue bar, then choose Create a New Account. A maximum of 60 pages may be printed at one time.
Using UL eBooks with eReaders (Kindle, Nook, etc.)

Google Books

Google Books allows you to search the full text of some books. Many will be under copyright and you won't be able to see the full text, but you can then search SOUTHcat or WorldCat to see if you can obtain a copy. Public domain titles will often be available in the full text.