To find books and government documents in USA Libraries' collections, use SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog.
Subject encyclopedias and handbooks have a wealth of background information that can provide you with a strong foundation upon which to build your research. To find a subject encyclopedia, try the search strategies shown in this tutorial. Use the same techniques to find handbooks - substitute "handbook" for "encyclopedia".
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.
If the USA Libraries don't have the book or article you're looking for, you can place a request for it via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). The link below will take you to the ILL page.