Introduction
Use the Library Catalog to search for print resources, multimedia resources, and ebooks. The Library Catalog also provides location and availability details. Use quotation marks for "phrase searching"
Books are a great source for background information, big themes, and analysis of a large topic. They are not such a great option for up-to-date statistics or cutting edge research because of the amount of time they take to publish.
If you find a book that looks like it might be useful, look at the table of contents and index and try to find the topic keywords you identified. If you can't find your keywords, the book is probably not going to be helpful for your research. If the keywords are in certain chapters, you can identify which sections you'll need to read instead of wasting your time on the whole book.
Reference Resources and Ebooks
Reference material can be very useful for finding broad overviews on a topic:
- SAGE eReferenceA collection of online reference material that covers sociology, social work, multicultural and gender studies, political science, psychology, anthropology, criminal justice, health & medicine. Main page allows for searching across all titles and subjects in the collection.
- Credo ReferenceOver 600 reference books, including encyclopedias, dictionaries (English and foreign language), thesauri, books of quotations, as well as a range of subject-specific reference books.