LibGuides at USA: CA 501: Communication Research Methods I: Finding Books

SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog

To find books and government documents in USA Libraries' collections, use SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog.

Catalog tips and tricks:
- Keyword searches – use quotation marks to hold phrases together ("business communication")
- Truncation – use ? after the root of a word to find all its variants (communicat? finds communicate, communication, communicator)
- Browse the Subject(s) field in records to find the right words for searches. (Example: Try doing a keyword search for "death penalty," then look at the subject(s) field in several records. You’ll see that the subject term is "Capital punishment." 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.

SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog
SOUTHcat is the catalog for the libraries at the University of South Alabama. Use this to find records for books, electronic books, media items, and government documents in our collection.

Suggested Search Terms

Below are some suggested search terms to use when searching the SOUTHcat catalog or library databases. Search techniques may vary with each databases, so look at help screens or ask a librarian for suggestions about using quotation marks and truncation symbols.

Leave out the word "and" when doing a single keyword searches on SOUTHcat, since "and" is automatically added between words if the phrase is not in quotes. Put phrases in quotation marks to search as a phrase. Use ? as a truncation or wildcard symbol in the catalog. SOUTHcat will ignore internal punctuation in a word, for example: non-verbal will find nonverbal.

"social sciences" methodology
qualitative research
"social sciences" research
research method?
psychology methods
"organizational behavior" research
survey? methodology
questionnaire? methodology
interview? research
qualitative method?

Finding Books from Other Libraries

Worldcat.org This link opens in a new window
Public access to WorldCat. Enter zip code or state to find local libraries.
WorldCat (FirstSearch) This link opens in a new window
OCLC's database of library holdings around the world. Includes ILL request link. Citations only.

Interlibrary Loan

Electronic Books

EBSCO eBook Collection (formerly NetLibrary)
A collection of about 11,173 current electronic books which you (student, faculty or staff) can search, browse, check-out and read on a computer anywhere in the world. The University Library has added the Teacher's Resource Collection of 46 books to our NetLibrary subscription. Do a Title search on the SOUTHcat Catalog: Teacher's resources.The checkout period for books from Netlibrary is currently 4 hours. In order to check out a book, you must create an account with NetLibrary.

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.

Springer Ebooks
A collection of over 29,000 electronic books from Springer Publishing for the years 2005 to 2011. Sort your results by date so that the books we have access to will appear first. You can also tell if a book is part of our collection if the square to the left of the title is green.

Search Google Books

Part of Google's library-scanning project. Only books in the public domain are shown in full text. Others may have just a citation or show selected pages from the book. Remember, you can check SOUTHcat to see if we have a book you find in Google Books if the full text is not available.