Search the Library Catalog
Books: Get to Know Your Topic
Books and eBooks are a great choice when you're new to a subject, since they can provide topic overviews and background information. They don't need to be read cover-to-cover to be useful - just check the table of contents or the index to find sections that are relevant to your interests. In eBooks, you can do a search for your topic within the book.
For some relevant reads, look for the writers you're studying in these ebooks:
Sample Searches
| Reconstruction AND African Americans |
Use AND between two or more terms to find materials with all the terms. Searching forReconstruction AND African Americans will only include books that have both terms in their contents. |
| slave narratives OR slave autobiographies |
Use OR between similar terms. Searching forglobal warming OR climate change will find books that refer to either term. |
| "New Negro Movement" |
Use quotation marks ( " " ) around specific phrases such as "new negro movement" to find the words in that specific order. |
| African American writ* |
Use an asterisk ( * ) to find multiple endings of one word. Using African American writ* as a search term will include results that refer to African American writers, writing, or writings. |