HIS 4990 Senior Seminar in History - Primary Sources

Searching a database is different than typing your question into Google.

You need to be precise in your language and communicate using the language of the database.

You can learn to be an expert searcher with these strategies. 

You can start searching for books or book chapters in our catalog, Spartan Search. There are many e-books available for instant online access.  

If you want a physical book, follow the tutorial below to filter by materials available at Phillips Library. For more options, you can choose to search our partner libraries and borrow through IShare.

You can search for a specific book by a title, author or keyword.  The library catalog will give you the following information:

• Title of the book
• Author
• Publication information
• Call number (books) or access link (eBooks)
• Item status (available, etc.)

How to Search for Books
in Phillips Library Catalog

You can start searching for articles from the library's homepage, or you can use go directly to our A to Z database page here.

General Tips for Searching in Databases:

• Split up your keywords, the advanced search page allows you to place each concept in its own search box.
• Use your limiters, these are located on the left side of the results page.  Consider using:
  • Peer-reviewed limits your results to scholarly journals that puts articles through the peer-review process.  Which you may need for this assignment.
  • Publication date, this limits results to a specific publication date range.  Depending on the type of information you need, it's recommended to limit your results to articles published within the last 5 years.
  • Full text, only shows articles you can read in the database(s) you are currently searching in.  For broader topics, or when you are getting a lot of results, turn this on.
  • When in doubt, refer to this guide to the research process and library tutorials.
• Make sure you log in - Login to Okta and again if prompted to access everything smoothly and easily. Tutorial here.

How to Search for Articles
in Spartan Search

Use the advanced search feature to form a smarter search. Separating out your concepts helps the database understand what you mean.

Using advanced search also makes it easier to set other requirements for your research, like the date range during which it was published or what type of material it is.

The button for advanced search will look different on each database platform, but it's worth finding!

Boolean Operators

Use the Boolean Operators AND, OR and NOT to create search statements to enter in databases, Spartan Search, Google, etc.

Examples:

• College AND Technology AND Learning
• (College OR Higher Education OR University) AND (Technology OR Computers) AND (Learning OR Instruction)
• (Technology AND Learning AND Elementary ) NOT College

Wildcards

Wildcards allows you to search for multiple terms with the same root at once by using an asterisk. 

Examples:

• Educat* = Educate, Education, Educational, Educator
• Child* = Child, Children, Childish

Phrase Searching

Search for exact phrases using quotation marks.

Example:

• "higher education": returns results that contain the exact phrase "higher education"