Research Guides: CITY 360: Carceral Geographies (BMC): Library Basics

Tips for Searching

Deconstruct your topic or research question to identify keywords, phrases or concepts. Think of synonyms of these terms to use when searching. Try combining search terms using Boolean operators to help focus your search.

Boolean Operator: AND, OR, NOT, NEAR

Use AND to connect your main concepts
Use OR between related concepts
Use NEAR to find two concepts that are in proximity to each other (an option on JSTOR)
Put quotations around a term to search for that exact phrase e.g. "migration policy"

Use nesting by adding parentheses around your OR phrases and quotes around multi-term phrases

Examples: (urban OR city) AND plan*

(city AND planning) AND (America)

America* AND (“urban layout” OR “city planning”)

Truncate your word to get more results and alternative endings by adding an asterix * to the word

•creat* = creature, creation, create, creating, creator, etc.

Use a Wildcard (?) for alternative spellings

•wom?n = woman or women

•hono?r = honor or honour

•?nquiry = inquiry or enquiry

Locating Books in Tri-Co and Beyond

Tripod Library Catalog
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- Use Tripod to find resources available from the TriCo Libraries.
- Search for books, e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more

Need help navigating Tripod, the library catalog, and the libraries? Go to the Student Library Guide

Oxford Reference
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Bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias, Oxford Reference is the premier online reference product, spanning 25 different subject areas with coverage from 2002 to the present.
WorldCat
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A catalog of the holdings of books, journals, and other materials held by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) member libraries. Includes manuscripts, maps, films and sound recordings. Covers works published before 1,000 BC-present.

Borrowing Beyond TriCo: ILL/E-Z Borrow
Need a look that isn't in the TriCo?

Reference works

Oxford Reference
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Bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias, Oxford Reference is the premier online reference product, spanning 25 different subject areas with coverage from 2002 to the present.

Encyclopedia of urban studies (Online : Gale)
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Covers all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. Includes urban economics, urban planning, urban architecture, urban ecology, urban transportation systems, urban politics, and urban social relations.