Black Studies: Books / Catalogs

Simple Search

• Single white box
• Look up resources by keyword, title, author, or subject
• Huge results list
• Many different types of resources; articles, books and more
• Best when you are NOT looking for particular types of sources, e.g. - popular, scholarly, primary sources, empirical studies, DVD, etc.
• Refine results by applying various facets on the left margin

Advanced search

• Use for complex searches. 
• Many more options
• Specify Articles books or more (big results list); Resources in the Library (small results list of mostly books); etc.
• Specify the material type - format (book, articles, journals, images, audio, video, scores, maps, dissertations, or government documents)
• Specify one or more fields - author, title, subject, ISBN
• Specify publication year, language,  book
• contains, starts with, exact phrase
• Multiple Keywords or Subjects (search for "african americans" OR blacks AND "academic achievement" AND child*)

Browse Search

• NOT for keyword searching
• Use for known item searches - e.g., titles, authors, subject headings

Still can't find what you need for your research? Contact me at achikowero@ucsb.edu!

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

Looking for books or journals? Here are a few tips. Black Studies covers a wide array of topics. You can come from all different angles like education, history, literature, sociology, psychology, economics, environmental science, law, etc.  Before you do a search for anything, brainstorm a few keywords to start off with.  As you begin to retrieve results, you'll notice some words seem to bring back more relevant results. Jot those down and add them to your search.

Here are some sample search terms.

• Blacks (link to alphabetical list of subjects)
  • You'll find subject headings like Blacks -- Africa -- Intellectual life
  • or Blacks -- America --Ethnic Identity
• African American (link to alphabetical list of subjects)
  • You'll find subject headings like African American abolitionists -- History -- 19th century
  • or African American artists -- 20th century -- Exhibitions

Do You Have a Citation? Citation Linker

• Do you have a citation to an article, a book chapter, or other resources?
• Citation Linker will help you locate the item from your citation. Select the appropriate form, fill in as much information as you can, and then click continue.

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