ENG 400 (Sorisio)

Finding books and book chapters

Books and chapters within books are important sources for just about any English research topic, but are especially useful when looking for a source that will provide historical context.

Books and book chapters can be found via the Library Search tool on the University Libraries Home page:

After setting up your search, use the limiters on the left to limit to books and book chapters.

Options for looking beyond the WCU catalog

The WCU Libraries have some great book collections, but we never have everything on a given topic.  Here are some different approaches to finding more books for your research.  Once you have identified a book,  use  EZ-Borrow to request it from another library.

• Worldcat.org
  • pros:  really large catalog of catalogs, including tons of really old books; easy to see how widely held a book is; uses subject headings
  • cons:  the search interface is kind of terrible; often multiple, slightly different entries for a book or for different editions of  a book
• Amazon.com
  • pros:  familiar interface; will often give book previews/show table of contents
  • cons:  has an advanced search, but it isn't that good; does not use subject heading; lots of non-scholarly books show up
• Google books
  • pros: familiar interface; best for book previews; often has full text of pre-1923 books (out of copyright); links to Worldcat (Find in a Library feature)
  • cons:  does not use subject headings; lots of non-scholarly books show up
• Catalog of another university.  Most academic libraries still allow their catalogs to be searched by anyone.  So you can take a subject heading you found in the WCU catalog and try it in the catalog of a bigger and/or wealthier university (Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, UC-Berkele, etc.).
  • pros:  subject heading searching; less messy than WorldCat
  • cons:  unfamiliar interface, no way to quick check if WCU libraries own the book.