Subject and Course Guides: History: Books

Books & Media

Search I-Share
For books & multimedia items held by other Illinois academic libraries that you can request to be shipped here to check out

WorldCat (FirstSearch platform)
Union catalog with holdings information from libraries across the world.
The world's most comprehensive bibliography, with more than 49 million bibliographic records representing 400 languages. Covers information from 2100 B.C. to the present. Includes holdings information from libraries across the world. Now includes the Library of Congress Subject Headings as its thesaurus. Includes records produced by Connextion users.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar covers as much scholarly literature as Google has indexed.
You can use Google Scholar to search by keywords.
You can also use Google Scholar to search for sources that have cited a source you have in hand. Enter the author, article or book title, date, and, for articles, the title of the journal in which it appeared.

The following techniques can improve your success with searching the catalog:

If one term doesn't work, try a few others. Experiment with different vocabulary related to your topic. Brainstorm ideas for relevant keywords and use background sources such as the encyclopedias on the 'Getting Started' tab of this guide. E.g. your topic may be more about 'freedom' or 'autonomy' than individualism.

Use proper nouns. If appropriate, think about your topic in terms of proper nouns. Thinking in terms of proper nouns can help you both narrow it to a manageable size and reduce the size of your search retrievals. E.g., if your topic is presidential power, think of it in terms of a particular president.
Sort search results so that newest books appear first. The newest books are likely to be secondary sources, the oldest books more likely to be primary sources.
Ask yourself: "How would the government describe what this book is 'about'"? Books are catalogued according to subject by the Library of Congress, which uses standardized subject headings that often reflect the priorities of the U.S. federal government, and can sometimes lag behind academic writing in terms of using the most contemporary terminology.
If the UIC copy is unavailable or if UIC does not have what you need, Search I-Share. The I-Share catalog tells you what 80+ academic libraries in Illinois have and you can request online most of the books.