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HIST 125: The Evolution of Modern Europe

Finding Books

Search Omni to find books, journals, videos and other materials owned by the Library.  You may search by keywords, author, title or subject headings. 
 
To find books by a particular author or person, search Omni by author/creator. Go to Advanced Search and enter person's name..
 
 
To find books about a particular author or person, search Omni by subject heading:

Subject Headings vs Keyword Searching

Subject headings allow you to search for resources on a particular author or topic and are often more productive than keyword searches. 

Keyword searches work best if you have multiple concepts or topics. Think of the words that best describe your topic and then connect them with the boolean operators AND OR NOT.

One strategy to find books on your topic is to use a keyword search to find relevant subjects that you can click on to find more books on the same topic.

Topic: Symbolism and art in the French revolution.

Keyword Searching TIPS
 

Search Technique  

What It Does

quotation marks

Searches for exact phrase

Truncation *

Searches for all forms of a word

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)

Lets you broaden or narrow your search

 
(french OR france) AND revolution AND (symbolism OR art)
 
When searching OMNI for books, use the facets located on the search results screen, to limit your search results to books & ebooks.
 
Select useful titles and look at the full record for subject headings.Relevant subjects for this topic include:
 
Symbolism in art--France
France--History--Revolution, 1789-1799--Art and the revolution
Art--Political aspects--France
Revolutions in art
 

Subject Headings

Knowing the right subect heading can help you get to information more quickly in Omni.

For example, World War II can be described using the following terms:

  • European War, 1939-1945
  • Second World War
  • World War Two
  • World War 2

You could search Omni using all those keywords. Or, you could use one subject heading to find all of the library's materials about World War II:

World war, 1939-1945

Relevant subject headings for this course include:

Enlightenment
France--History--Revolution, 1789-1799

Industrial revolution
Industrial revolution--Great Britain
Europe--Economic conditions--18th century
Europe--Economic conditions---19th century.
Technological innovations--Europe--History
Technological innovations--History
 
Nationalism--History
Nationalism--Europe--History
Nationalism--Europe--History--19th century
Nationalism--Italy--History
Liberalism--History
Conservatism
Social Darwinism--France--History
Imperialism--Great Britain--History--19th century
 
Renaissance
Renaissance France
Reformation
Counter Reformation
Romanticism
 
Russia History Revolution 1917-1921
Soviet Union History Revolution 1917-1921 (older heading)
 
World war, 1914-1918
World war, 1939-1945
 
Cold War
World politics--1945-
Totalitarianism
Communism History
Communism--Great Britain History
 

Standard Subdivisions

Library of Congress Subject Headings use standard subdivisions under place names (countries, states, cities and other geographic divisions) to classify works.  Here are some for history, which can be further subdivided by time period.

--history
--civilization
--economic conditions
--foreign relations
--intellectual life

--personal narratives
--politics and government
--social conditions
--social life and customs

Blackwell Companions

The Blackwell Companion series of books are particularly useful for historiography since they give authoritative overviews of the scholarship that has shaped the understanding of a given subject, as well as ongoing debates among historians.

Search Omni by the following titles: Blackwell Companions to European History and Blackwell Companions to World History, to find such titles as:

  • A Companion to World War I
  • A Companion to Russian History
  • A Companion to the Reformation
  • A Companion to the French Revolution

Some are available online; others only in print.

Oxford History of Modern Europe

A series of volumes on specific countries or topics. Search Omni by title for Oxford History of Modern Europe to find them all. Some are available online, others only in print.

E-Book Packages

The Library subscribes to a number of e-book packages which can be accessed via Databases. Packages that are of interest to history students are:
 
Provides full-text access to major works in American, European and Middle Eastern history. Topics covered include many aspects of history plus archaeology, area studies, art, folklore, literature, music, philosophy, political science, religion, and women's studies. Records for these books should be in Omni.
 
Historical reference compendium allows access to the texts of the Cambridge Histories series. Search or browse by topic. Relevant for undergraduates, graduates, lecturers and researchers.
 
Blackwell publishes a series of books of historiographic essays on many topics in history. They are available online through Blackwell Reference Online.
 
A collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
 
Oxford Scholarship Online                        
offers full-text access to scholarly publishing in 20 subjects from around the world,
 
Provides access to about 600,000 electronic books (ebooks) Prom a wide variety of publishers.
 
UPSO includes titles from Oxford University Press and other partner presses.  QUL has access to selected titles, indicated by a green open lock icon on search results screens