U.S. History, Native Americans, 2020 (Farquhar): Home

DATABASES:

• EBSCO Discovery Search: The all-in-one search. Its searches almost all of our library databases and our online book catalog at once. 
   
• EBSCO Ebooks Academic edition (ebooks)
   
• 8 ABC-Clio History databases (specifically the Native American Experience)
  • Note: for better results, put quotation marks around phrases when searching
  • You can search all 8 databases at once, or you can click on The American Indian Experience database and search it by itself
  • ABC-Clio is the publisher name; each of the 8 databases within that have their own name. The information in these databases are original content to the database, and not published in print​
     
• JSTOR (scholarly journal articles)
   
• Gale Virtual Reference Library (reference books in electronic format)
•  
• Academic Search Ultimate (magazine, newspapers, and some scholarly journal articles)
   
• The New York Times (newspaper) 
  • Sign up at school/on campus for an Educational Pass to access articles from the archives (and to read more than 6 articles a month). 

When doing research, we strongly recommend that you always start with authoritative sources and library resources (our print collection and/or our library databases)

1)  Brainstorm keywords that you might use to find resources

• You might need to think of synonyms for some of your terms, similar terms, or related terms, all which provide different ways to search
  • Native Americans 
  • American Indian
  • First Peoples
• You might need to search more broadly / use more general terms)

 
2)  Start your research with authoritative sources

• Books in our library (see the block below for a list of recommended books)
• Library databases 
• The list of recommended websites found in your assignment sheet

3)  Searching library databases

When you search library databases, don't search in complete sentences.  Databases are not like Google.  

• Use a couple of keywords, combined with the word AND:
  • Native Americans and education
• Don't put more than three keywords together in the same search 
• If you want to search for a phrase, it sometimes helps to put quotation marks around it:
  • "Native Americans"

Finding books in the catalog

A Keyword search will find chapters or sections of a book that might be on your topic

• By default, you are searching the catalog by keyword.
• Sample keyword search: Native Americans

A Subject search will find books where the entire book is about your topic

• When in the online catalog, click the plus sign to the right of the search bar to change how you search
• From the Type drop down menu, click the arrow and select Subject in the list
• Sample subject searches:
  • Indians of North America (this is the official subject heading in our library catalog when referring to American Indians/Native Americans)
  • Indians of North America--Government relations

Finding books on the shelf by call number

Reference collection
A book that starts with REF is found in the Reference section (first three rows in library). There may be some subject specific encyclopedias on your topics

• REF 300 – Social Sciences
• REF 900 – History books

Circulating collection 

• 970-979 – History books on your topics  (upstairs)