Instruction Upper Division: Books (15 minutes)

Choose most appropriate source types to support an argument or outline a topic in a long research paper or other assignment.

Request materials not owned by the library using Interlibrary Loan when warranted.

Search for sources using a citation or bibliography.

Cite sources using a citation style appropriate for the discipline if one exists.

Books containing scholarly work provide:

• Well established ideas about a topic
• Contents that are often written by experts
• Background information
• Overview of big issues
• Bibliographies, or list of sources that you find and use.

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  Use books quickly by browsing through the table of contents or by using the index to find precisely what you need.

Review: 

1. Search for a book on your topic. Limit to Print Book format.

2. Sort list of results by: newest to oldest

4.Note books owned by Wordcat, University System of MD & partners. and ILL service. 

5. Search again, this time using information from a provided citation and limiting to Print Book format. 

6. Export a prospective title to RefWorks.

Use our online Call Number Locator to quickly find the book you need!

When evaluating the content of a book, you need to check if it is accurate and relevant. 

Questions to ask:

• Does the title indicate that the book is too specific or not specific enough? Is there a subtitle with more information?
• What audience is the book directed towards?
• Does the book address a topic from a certain timeframe and/or geographic area?
• What sources did the author use?
• Is the information current and up-to-date? Does it need to be?

 Note:

• Multiple editions indicate the book is well regarded enough to have been through revisions, and has been updated.

• Scan the preface or the introduction for a statement on why the book was written and what the author hopes to accomplish with it. Often the author will also let you know what perspective of bias he or she brings to the topic.

• Look for references and/or a bibliography (may be called Works Cited, Sources, etc.). This list shows you what kind of sources the author used to write the book.

• Browse the Table of Contents to see what the book covers. Look up one or two of your keywords in the index in the back of the book to see if they're there. Is the entire book devoted to your topic? Is there a whole chapter? Or just a paragraph or two?

• Search library databases for book reviews to find out what others think of the author's book.

• Look at the subject headings assigned to the book using a library cataloge or database record to help you check for content relevance.

• When deciding if a book's content is current, check the publication date and the dates of the references used in the book's bibliography.

• Exercise care when looking at a book's publication date. It can take up to two years for a book to be published. Be aware that some dates represent the year a book was republished (as a paperback, or after being out of print for some years).

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  Adapted from CQ University: http://libguides.library.cqu.edu.au/content.php?pid=88010&sid=654786

There are over 100,000 ebooks in the Libraries' collection, and they can be used as supporting sources for research just as print ones can. Let's have a look at one. 

Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II

1. Table of contents and links to chapters allow you to jump to content of interest.

2. Search Within feature allows you to search keywords within the book and links to every page in which that keyword appears. 

3. Export feature sends citation info to Easybib.