Finding Books
Books can provide a comprehensive overview of your topic by pointing you towards key ideas, arguments, and thinkers. Scan the index or the table of contents to find the most relevant chapter. Use the bibliography for leads.
- Coates Library CatalogCheck the entire item record for useful information such as subject keywords and tables of contents.
- Using ebooksDownloading scholarly ebooks can be surprisingly tricky. This guide will get you started.
- Open Library @ Internet ArchiveUse the Internet Archive to search for digital surrogates of Trinity's print books. Thanks to a program called controlled digital lending, you can check out and download these books as if they were physical copies on library shelves.
- Google BooksUse Google Books to find page previews of scholarly monographs, or to find your keywords in context in order to assess a book's relevance to your topic.
- WorldCatWorldCat is a catalog of library holdings worldwide. When Trinity doesn't have a book you need, you can send an interlibrary loan (ILL) request straight from WorldCat.
Find Keywords in Context Using Google Books
Searching keywords and topical phrases in Google Books often yields page previews that allow you to read your keywords in context. This gives you a more definite sense of a book's relevance to your project. Use this technique to efficiently skim books or to expand your working bibliography.
You can also search the full text of Coates Library's ebooks this way, and then download the book section you need. For help using our ebook collection, see the Tips and Tools tab of this guide.
Search by Subject
Use subject headings to create narrowly tailored search queries.
Subject headings constitute a controlled vocabulary that can help you find sources by their primary subjects. The Library of Congress maintains this vocabulary making it standard across many different databases and catalogs.
For example, imagine you're developing a topic on theme parks. Searching that term in LC's subject heading thesaurus reveals the preferred subject heading, "amusement parks." Using the advanced search interface in a given database, you can change the search field from keyword to subject as pictured below. Searching "amusement parks" in the subject field returns all results tagged with that heading. Now cross-reference your subject search with keywords specific to your interest in amusement parks, such as the way they're marketed.
Caveat searcher! Narrow queries of this kind may inadvertently filter relevant results. It's often best to begin with broad, keyword-based searches, before moving to subject headings.