Where to Browse: Notable Dewey Numbers
305.8 | Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism
306.3 | Economic institutions
322.4 | Political action groups
326 | Slavery and emancipation
380s | Commerce, Communications, Transportation
920 | Biography
973 | United States History
Monograph Madness
Struggling to find a particular book? Want something that isn't in our library's collection? Don't panic! Your librarians have plenty of ways to procure the materials you require. Let us know what you're after and we'll handle the rest!
General Search Tips: Boolean Basics
Constructing a good search is boring—well, the transitive verb form of “boring,” as in “boring a tunnel through the hillside.” Constructing a good search is also mining—extracting items of interest from a mass of material that, while potentially valuable, isn’t exactly what you need at the moment. Constructing a good search is boring and mining both bundled into a series of active operations. Faced with a heap of information, your job is to dig your way through and arrive on the other side, culling gems, jewels, ores, and fragments from the tunnel walls along the way. Boolean operators—AND, OR, and NOT—will help you as you go. (Just be sure to type them in all-caps to ensure they function properly!)
AND: Sometimes you’re looking for silver; sometimes you’re looking for gold. Sometimes you want both, and AND is here to make it happen (for example: silver AND gold). That said, silver and gold aren’t typically found in the same vein. When you busy yourself searching for El Dorado, you may ignore a city of silver just around the corner...
OR: Sometimes, you’ll have to include a fork in your tunnel, and that’s okay since OR lets you have it both ways (for example: left OR right). You don’t necessarily need to dig each route to completion—pursue one or the other, but just far enough to find (or realize that you aren’t finding) what you’re looking for. If you follow too many forks, you just might find yourself trapped in a labyrinth, so OR with caution!
NOT: Sometimes you’re only sure what you don’t want, and that’s where NOT comes in handy (for example: poetry NOT Shakespeare). That said, sometimes—perhaps more often than we’d like to admit—we’re sure we don’t want something until we do want it. Though it’s useful to know where not to dig, excluded areas very well may contain the slightest hint, the tiniest sliver, of whatever we’re clawing toward. NOT at your own peril!
broad topics |
sample subject terms |
---|---|
the slave trade |
slave trade |
the institution of slavery |
slavery--history |
the history of africa |
africa--history |
other places and times |
slavery--rome |
ethnic and cultural encounters and conflicts |
blacks--europe--history |