Anthropology: Finding Books

Books and monographs will often provide the most detailed treatment of a topic.  For this reason they can take longer to publish.  Therefore, the most current information on a topic will likely be found in journal articles.

Research Tip:  For thorough research on a topic you should use a mix of both books and articles.

WorldCat Discovery @UCSB is a way to find books and other materials located in libraries outside the UC System. 

Develop Your Search Strategy

Choose the most effective search words.  Most library databases are pretty literal.  If you search in them using the word children, you find records that include the word children, but not records that contain instead the words child or childhood or boys or girls – alternate words that express the same general idea.  Search using the key words and phrases that a scholar writing on your topic might use.  If you want sources on “childhood labor in the United States”, you might construct a search grid like this:

Boolean Operators.  Boolean operators determine the relationship between the words used in a database search. A search for boys AND girls means that both words must be present in resulting records. A search for boys OR girls retrieves records that have either or both words. And a search for boys NOT girls returns records that include the word boys except those records that also include the word girls.

Phrase Searching.  To search for words as a phrase – such as “Tea Party” or “global warming” – put the phrase in quotation marks. The database will show only results that include that exact phrase.

Truncation.  Truncation lets you search for words with a common, initial root.  A search for employ* – using the asterisk as a wildcard – returns results that include words like employment, employer, employee, employees (plural), employable and employability, as well as the root word employ.