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Latin American & Iberian Studies Subject Guide

Tips for using the UC Library Search Box

  • You can search in English, Spanish and Portuguese
  • If you want to control your results don't type keywords in the basic search box, instead, click on the Advanced Search link (below the search box), where you can control what type of material you want to search for first, e.g. books, articles, films, etc.
  • If using phrases, use quotation marks to make sure your research results are relevant to your topic, e.g. "Latin America" AND "political candidates"; "Caribbean Elections" AND Corruption

Recommended Resources

You can search for print and ebooks on Latin American and Iberian Studies from the library website. You can search for books that talk about the region or about a specific country. Books, eBooks, articles, and films are available in English and Spanish. When searching for phrases always use quotation marks, e.g. "Cuban Santeria" or "Puerto Rico"

 

Sample searches:

  • "equal rights" AND "Caribbean"
  • "human rights" AND Cuba 
  • "LGBT rights" OR "Gay rights" AND Jamaica

Tips: 

  • Go to the UC Library Advanced Search and select "Books" under Material Type, so your result list only books (print or eBook)!
  • Want to find books about a historical figure? In the Advanced Search, select the option "Title" and type the name of the person you are looking for. That way, you will only get research books about them.
  • Book is not UCSB? No problem! You can request it by clicking on the Get it at UC link!
You can also search for primary sources published in book formats such as memoirs, autobiographies, correspondence, and travel writings.

 

 Tips:

  • Go to the Advanced Search and select "Books" under Material Type, so your result list only books (print or eBook)!
  • To find books written by a historical figure, select the option, "Author/Creator" from the left side drop-down menu and type the full name of the author in quotation marks. You should then get only books written by them or a compilation of their work.
  • Looking for correspondence, autobiographies, or diaries? Select the option, Subject, and type correspondence for the first line and select, "Author/Creator" in the second line, then type the author's name within quotation marks. E.g. Subject = correspondence; Author/Creator = "Jose Marti"
  • Travel narratives are a little harder to search on the catalog, but my best advice is to use the following subject headings
    • Subject = [Country] + "Description and travel", e.g. Cuba Description and travel
If you still need help finding any of these primary sources, contact me!
You can search for individual journals that focus on Latin America and Iberian Studies. Sometimes these journals may have what is called a special issue where the whole volume focuses on a particular topic, e.g. migration, politics, economics, etc. To find which Latin American and Iberian Studies journals are available online visit the Journal Search (see link below). Type "Latin American Studies" to see a list of journals with that title. If you know the title of a journal, you can search for it too, and see what type of access we have at the library.
Remember to always login all databases with your UCSB netID and password to access licensed resources 

 

Tip: Latin American and Iberian Studies is an inter- and multidisciplinary research field, therefore you can search for Latin American and Iberian Studies topics in other subject databases. For example, you can search a Political Sciences database to search for articles about political issues in Latin America, Spain, or Portugal.

Sample searches could be:

  • Elections AND Brazil
  • Corruption AND Argentina
  • Nationalism AND Cataluña OR Catalonia
  • Mapuche AND autonomy AND Chile
These are my Top 3 databases to search for articles (AKA academic/scholarly/peer-reviewed articles)