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HIST 001E: Past and Present in Latin America (SC): Finding Scholarly Books and Articles

History 011E: Past and Present in Latin America (Armus) - Fall 2014

Search Tripod

How to Find Books

To find a book, use Tripod, the library catalog for the TriCo Libraries. You can request books from Bryn Mawr and Haverford, and they'll be delivered to Swarthmore (within a day or two).

 
How to Find a Book:

1. Search Tripod to find books on your topic.
2. Once you've found a book that looks relevant, check to see whether the book is available at Swarthmore. If it says S McCabe, find the Call Number. This will tell you where to find the book in the library. If the book you want is only available from H (Haverford / Lutnick) or B (Bryn Mawr / Canaday), click the Request button to have the book delivered to you at Swarthmore. 

Call Numbers in McCabe Library:

A-E call numbers - Lower Level of McCabe (below the main floor)
F-K call numbers - Level 2 (above the main floor)
L-Z call numbers - Level 3

 
 
Narrow Your Search Results Geographically
In Tripod, search for a keyword that relates to your topic (e.g. oil). Then click the link for Books & More. This link will bring you to a set of search results with limits on the right-hand side of the page. Scroll down and find the Geography limit, then limit by a region (e.g. Latin America) or a specific country (e.g. Cuba).
 
Use One Good Book to Find Others
When you've located a relevant book, there are several strategies you can use to find additional related works.
  • Search by the subject headings you find in the book's Tripod record--this will help you find other books on the same topic, classified with the same subject heading.
  • Consult the book's bibliography and use Tripod and library databases to track down some of the sources that author cited.
 
 

Finding Scholarly Journal Articles

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Scholarly databases (e.g. JSTOR) are tools for finding scholarly journal articles. It's essential to use these tools when doing research for papers, or else you risk missing important scholarly articles that relate to your topic. Scholarly databases will give you a smaller number of search results than a Google search, and it's easy to limit your results to peer-reviewed scholarly articles.

That said, scholarly databases don't work the same way as Google and other search engines. When you search for articles in Historical Abstracts, you're only searching the abstract (summary) of the article. You don't search the full text of the article. So you need to be clever in choosing search terms and using the Advanced Search tools to actually find what you're looking for.

Use the button to actually get the full-text of the article (usually as a PDF). Feel free to ask a librarian for help if you run into trouble.

 

Help is available!  Simon Elichko, the librarian for this course, can help you come up with search terms and strategies. Contact them at selichk1@swarthmore.edu to make an appointment or ask a question. Or visit their office hours at the McCabe Research & Info Desk.