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English Studies

A research guide for English Studies from West Chester University Libraries
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Rachel McMullin
Contact:
F.H. Green Library, Room 209

Introduction to books

As an English Studies major, you have to use books for research.  They area a huge part of scholarly production in both English Studies and all the humanities disciplines.  This page will share two ways to find relevant books while researching.

  • through the library catalog 
  • outside of the library

Finding WCU Libraries' books

Finding WCU Libraries' books

You can find books via the search box on library homepage.  

Step 1:  Enter your search terms and use the pulldown menu labeled "All Items" to select "Books".

Library homepage showing main search box and All Items limiter

Step 2: You will see results for both ebooks and physical books.  Links to full text and/or location information are located under each title.  If you forgot to limit to books, you can still do it on this page right under the search box.

Library search interface showing results and option for limiting to books under search box.

Step 3: Want to see books that WCU libraries don't own, but could get for you?  At the top of the left-hand column, click on "Expand results beyond my library."  When you see "No full text" under an entry, click it to see options for requesting it from another library (you will need to log in to do so).

Expand results beyond your library is an option iunder Narrow My Results

 

Through the library catalog

Both our huge ebook collections and our print collections can be searched together in our library catalog, which is embedded into the Library Search tool (search box on the library home page).  The search box below searches just the catalog.

Library catalog search box

 

Videos on using the catalog

Here are a couple of specialized videos on using the catalog

 

From outside WCU Libraries

It never hurts to search for books that don't appear in the WCU library systems.  Here are a number of different choices.  If you find a book we don't own, use the EZBorrow system to request it from another library.

  • 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
  • Worldcat.org
    • pros:  really large catalog of catalogs, including tons of older 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
  • 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.
West Chester University   ---    WCU Libraries  25 West Rosedale Avenue, West Chester, PA 19383  610-430-4400