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HIST 315: Modern Latin American History

Modern Latin American History

Finding Books

Look for resources by searching Omni to find books, journals, videos and other materials owned by the Library.  You may search by keywords, author, title or subject headings. 

Subject Headings versus 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 and need only a few books. 

For a comprehensive subject search, search with subject headings as well as keywords.

Searching Omni

Start with a keyword search, but expect to revise it. 

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
 
Topic: U.S. Latin American relations during the Cold War.
 

"cold war" AND "latin america" AND "united states"

Select useful titles and look at the full record for subject headings. Use them to provide more keyword ideas or as individual searches themselves.
 
"cold war" AND ("latin america" OR cuba OR chile) AND "united states"
 
When searching Omni for books, use the limiters on the left side under Modify Your Results to limit your search results to books & ebooks.

Examples of subject headings:

Argentina History 1817-1860
Cuba History Revolution 1959
Cuba Social life and customs
Chile History Coup Detat 1973
El Salvador History 1979-1992
Latin America History 20th century
Latin America Civilization
Latin America History 20th Century
Latin America Intellectual life 20th century
Latin America Social conditions
Mexico Economic conditions 1918-
Peru Politics and government 1919-1968
Revolutions Central America History 20th Century
Women Latin America History

Advanced Searching in Omni

Use the advanced search option for more precise searching. Using the drop-down options within the Advanced Search screen you can limit your search to specific fields and/or a combination of fields (Author, Title, Subject, Call number). For example:

Latin America Readers

The Latin America Readers are an invaluable resource and provide an in-depth introduction to issues affecting these countries today and puts them in an historical and cultural perspective.

Each volume will focus on a single country and cover the main themes in its history and contemporary life, including migration and urbanization, racial and ethnic diversity, art and culture, war and political strife, women's rights, the environment, economic reform, and democracy. Accompanied by a variety of images, including photographs, drawing, and maps. Some titles featured are:

The Argentina Reader

The Brazil Reader

The Chile Reader

The Cuba Reader

The Guatemala Reader

The Peru Reader

Search Latin American Readers as a title and limit to Books & eBooks to find a listing of all the titles in the series.

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.