Tripod allows you to search essentially everything possessed by the Tri-College libraries. While it is useful for searching for many types of things, here we will use it to find books which may be helpful for you in this class.
Because Tripod searches such a large array of materials, oftentimes you can find something relevant simply by using a few keywords in a simple search. We will look at the bracketed book more below to learn how to use one book to find others like it.
The filters on the left side of the list of results allow us to make our search more specific. If we are looking for books, we could use the Resource Type > Books - Electronic and Books - Print filters, checking the boxes to the left of each filter. (We could also do the same thing with articles, or we might be interested in using the Date filter to see, say, materials from the last 5 years.)
Once you have selected the filters you want, click Apply filters to refresh the list of results.
What are subject headings?
Subject headings, or subject terms, are categories the Library of Congress has established to classify books. These words and phrases may describe the genre, topic, or disciplinary approach (etc.) of a given book. These are intended to get at something important in the book, especially its salient topic or subject matter, rather than just something it may merely mention and not focus on.
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How do I find subject headings?
To find relevant subject headings, one way you can start is to find books related to your topic and look at the subject terms that have been applied to them.
To see a book's subject headings, click on it in the Tripod search results. This will bring up more detailed information about the book. Scroll down and find the area tagged Subject within the listing of the item's details.
These are linked in Tripod, so that when you click on them it will automatically show you other books which are tagged with those same terms.
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What are some helpful subject headings for this class?
Communication in science
Environmentalism in literature
Environmental literature
Environmental literature -- United States -- History and criticism
Ecocriticism
Ecoliterature
Ecology in literature
Nature -- effect of human beings on
Nature in literature
Ethnoecology
Philosophy of nature
Place (Philosophy)
Natural disasters
Narration (rhetoric)
"Communication in science" might be a useful subject heading to search for books relating to your class. You can scroll through to see what interests you, or you can refine your search by combining Subject Headings with keywords or more subject headings to help bring out more specific results. For example, you might search for "creative non-fiction" or "journalism" or "climate change," or combinations of these.
You can perform these more complex searches by toggling to the Advanced Search feature, which will allow you to search for different sets of words in different areas.
Use the drop-down menus to the left of the rows to tell the search engine where to look for these words, whether in subject terms, author name, ISBN, or other areas.
Below are some examples of books returned by these searches:
What Rivers Know by 
Storytelling to Accelerate Climate Solutions by 
Science V. Story by 
A Darker Wilderness by 
Writing Environments by 
Essays to My Daughter on Our Relationship with the Natural World by 
Beasts at Bedtime by 
Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment by 
Breathing Aesthetics by 
Science Communication Through Poetry by 
