When you are searching the Catalog, first try searching by subject headings relating to the major topic you are focusing on.
Some examples include:
economy, health, world history, science, communication, medicineIf you don't find any results, or get too many results, try similar words to what you are using or try adding keywords to your search.
subject heading: medicine add the keyword: birth control
subject heading: timeline instead try: chronology
Some examples of keywords:
Hitler, Bosnia, Theory of Relativity, etc.You can also search the Library of Congress Authorities to see what the accepted subject headings and subheading are.
An example of a good subject heading (SH) is
history, modern - 20th centuryIf you search our catalog with this SH you will get 29 results. Take a look!
Finally, search our Dictionaries for additional subjects/keywords to search with.
Some examples of REFERENCE books the library owns that would be helpful in this class:
- Datapedia (REF 317.3 D23) (use for statistics)
- The Times Atlas of the 20th century (REF 911 T58) (use for timeline)
- The World Factbook (REF 317.3 W92) (use for facts)
- Annual Reviews of [various topics] . . . (REF) (use for survey)
- these provide an overview of the major achievements in that area for the corresponding year.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States (REF 317.3 U58) (use for statistics)
- Historical Statistics of the US (REF 317.3 U58) (use for statistics)
- Historical Atlas of the 20th Century (REF 912 H42) (use for timeline)
- The Temple of Memories (306.089951 J61) (*this book is currently on reserve for Harter)
- this book is a good example of a secondary source. Secondary sources talk ABOUT a subject. Specifically, this book discusses how one studies the memories of people who lived through a shared event. The interviews with the actual people or news footage/photographs would be the primary source material.
- Start your research by looking at books that are a survey of world history to See how THEY analyzed history.
- Use primary AND secondary sources.
Good examples of primary sources include photographs, news footage, interview transcripts, journals, etc.
Last modified: Monday, December 19, 2011, 9:18 AM