AAS Senior Colloquium

Many scholars publish their work in books. So, for research on a topic that has been studied for more than a couple years, your best starting point is a good recent scholarly book. The easiest way to find that book is to ask someone else who is knowledgeable about your topic -- for example, your junior seminar instructor or spring JP advisor. But a thorough search of the library catalog is also essential. Here are some tips on finding books about historical topics in the Princeton University Library Catalog.

• Identify the Library of Congress Subject Heading for your topic, and use it in a subject search. You can look up LC Subject Headings in the big red books in the Trustee Reading Room (and elsewhere in the library). You can also look up a known book on your topic and click on the title to see the subject headings assigned to that book.
• Use the word "African American" as part of a keyword search.
• To find material about a person, an government agency, or an organization, search for it as a subject
• To limit your search results to English-language materials, "Limit Your Search" after searching.
• Didn't find enough? Expand your search in Worldcat to identify items not held by Princeton, then use Borrow Direct or Interlibrary loan to get the books you discover there.

Assessing what you find -- is this book worth your time?

• Who is the author? Is he/she associated with an academic institution?
• Who is the publisher? Most good scholarly books are published by academic presses, e.g. Princeton University Press or Oxford University Press (see the box to the right).
• When was the book published? Your first choice will probably be a book published in the last ten years or so, because a recent book will refer to all the previous work on your topic. But some older books are still very valuable, so do not worry if the most recent book you can find on your topic was published long ago.
• Does the book include the scholarly apparatus that will enable you to verify the author's work? Look for footnotes or endnotes plus a bibliography. A book with no notes or bibliography will not be helpful to you at this stage of your research.

Once you have a book in hand, read it. Alas, there are no shortcuts to this part of the research process.

When you consult books or articles in the library, you will encounter footnotes or endnotes that provide citations to other works that may be of interest to you.   When you wish to find that other work in the library, it is necessary to understand what type of publication is being cited.   You will need to use different tools to find different types of material.

Fortunately, the citations offer important clues to tell you which kind of material is being cited.

Journal articles:  Journals are issued in numbered volumes and issues within those volumes (for example, all journal issues published from January-December are in volume 12; each monthly publication has an issue number.)  Articles in journals are noted with three important pieces of information.   The title of the article is in quotation marks, the title of the journal is in italics, and the volume and issue number are given.  The numbers following the colon are page numbers.  (You may see a citation in either of the following formats.)   To search for journal articles, type the author's name and the article title into "Articles+".

Newspaper and magazine articles:  Newspapers and popular magazines usually do not have volume and issue numbers.  Therefore, the citation only indicates the date of the newspaper.  The title of the article is in quotation marks, the title of the newspaper or magazine is in italics, and the date is given.  The numbers following the date are page numbers.  To find a newspaper article, search for the name of the newspaper in the Catalog, then follow the links.  Consult a librarian if you need help.

Books:  Scholarly books are called "monographs" when they are published as stand-alone titles (not part of a series.)  The clue that a monograph is being cited is that the title is in italics, and place of publication and the name of the publisher are given.  To find a monograph, search for the title in the Catalog.  The number after the parenthesis is a page number.

Chapters in Books:  Some books are not written by a single author, but rather are collections of chapters by various authors.  The person who collects the chapters is called the editor.  The clues that a chapter is being cited is that the chapter title is in quotes, the editor is named, and the book title is in italics.  To find a chapter, search for the title of the whole book in the Catalog.

Book in a series:  Some books are part of a larger set; for example, a cited work could be the fourth volume in a series.  The clue that a book in a series is being cited is that a volume number precedes the page number.  To find a volume of a series, search for the title of the whole series in the Catalog.