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HY 457/557 & PSC 490: Antisemitism Seminar: Searching for Books

This guide is designed to support the HY 457/577 & PSC 490 course at USA.

How to Search for Books

Some books might be monographs. Monographs are academic books written as research products by experts. Other books might be more appropriately considered primary resources. These primary resource books could be first-hand accounts or collections of first-hand accounts (with an editor). They may also be called "readings."

For more help with telling primary vs secondary resources, please view the Primary and Secondary Resources page in this LibGuide.

There are three major pathways to find books:

  1. Search a library's catalog. This can almost always be done online. Different library catalogs may look different, but they should all function similarly. In the catalog, you can find physical books or e-books.
  2. Find the library section that contains the physical books. Books are almost always organized by topic. This means that books with a similar topic will physically be next to each other. There are some natural exceptions. A book about Jewish farmers in Russia might be in the Russian history section, the Jewish section, or possibly even in a labor history section. Be open to moving around a library's space and browsing freely.
  3. Search a database. Most databases focus on academic journals. However, humanities-focused databases like Project MUSE or JSTOR contain many digitized books.

How to Find Physical Books

To find a physical book in almost any university's library, you will need the book's Library of Congress call number. The call number tells you where the book is positioned in the library.

When you search in South's OneSearch, and find an interesting book, you can look at the attached record to see if the book is available and what the Call number is.

Screenshot of a search return for a book. The status, location, and call number information are included.

The call number starts with F. Our bookshelves are labeled with what letter and range of numbers are contained on that row of shelves.

When you find one book that fits your research interests, you can also browse for other physical books in that same area. They will have the same or similar topics!

 

How to Find E-Books Outside the Library

Some e-books are free to access. These books may have been created as an e-books. Other books may have been digitized, especially older books that are now under the public domain. Evaluate the quality of the books you find before using them.

Evaluating Monograph Quality

Monographs are scholarly works. You can evaluate the quality of a scholarly work to check that is appropriate for your research. Every monograph should have: an expert author, a scholarly publisher, and proof that the book is built on research. Monographs may or may not have book reviews, but they can be helpful to understand a monograph's contents and quality.

  • Authorship - Monograph authors should have expertise and authority in the subject. This can be shown by:
    • A doctoral degree in the discipline. Most authors you can search online to see their educational background.
    • An association with an educational institution like a University or a research organization.
  • Publisher - The publisher should be academic. This can be an academic press or society.
  • Proof of research - Monographs are scholarly works. They should have a list of resources the author consulted in writing their monograph. These may be called "works cited" or "bibliography". These works might be listed at the end of each chapter or at the end of the entire book.
  • Reviews - A scholarly book may have book reviews. These book reviews would be written by other scholars and published in academic journals. You can find book reviews by searching databases like Academic Search Complete with the book's title.