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HY 136: United States History since 1877: Books

This guide was created for the HY 136 class at USA.

Physical Books and eBooks

You can find books through 3 main pathways:

  1. OneSearch, the Library's main search feature on the Marx Library Homepage. (Filter your search results to only show resources: books and e-books.)
    1. You can find physical books (through the call number) and e-books (through links).
    2. Not all subscription e-books will appear in the search results.
  2. Searches outside of the library
    1. WorldCat is a website that allows you to search for almost any book that has ever been catalogued in any library. You can use WorldCat results to find books in nearby libraries, or you can find books to then request through the Library's InterLibrary Loan service.
    2. Google Books is a search engine inside of Google. You will only get full-text results for books in the public domain. You can also find titles to request through Library's InterLibrary Loan.
    3. Project Gutenberg is an online collection of digitized books that are in the public domain.
  3. Related Books
    1. In a book or article you like, read the bibliography/references. Let that author do your research for you.
    2. When you find a physical book, look at the other books around it. They will be about the same or related topics.

SOUTHcat

SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog - Search the catalog for books and government documents.

  • Use the Suggested search terms box to search the catalog
  • Use search punctuation tricks:
    • Quotation marks hold phrases together ("british empire")
    • Question marks truncate words.? (brit? would give you search results that include britain or british or brittany)
  • Use the catalog's vocabulary (subject terms) in its item descriptions:
    • A book might have the subject term, "Great Britain --Emigration and immigration." or "United States --Emigration and immigration --History --19th century."  Click on this subject term to find more records that are tagged with this same subject.
  • Find physical books in the Library.
    • Use the book's call number to locate it on the shelves. The first letter of the call number corresponds with the letter on the end of the line of shelves.
    • Books are positioned near each other when they have the same major subject! Browse the shelves around a book you like to find similar books.

How to Find Physical Books

The book's call number tells you where the book is physically located in the library.

In OneSearch, you can look at a book's record for the call number.

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 ranges. Find the F section, then look for the range of numbers this call number falls in.

Books are placed together by topic. Browse for other physical books in a subject you like!

 

Book Evaluation Video