PHIL 378: Philosophy and Intersectionality

Omni is the Library's search tool used to find books (and book chapters), at Queen's, as well as print materials from our 17 partner libraries throughout Ontario. Omni includes books, ebooks, magazine and journal articles, chapters, documents, videos, and more. Filters within Omni enable you to refine your search results to locate the information you need, by publication date, format, subject, and more.  

The basic Omni search box on the library homepage provides a convenient way to search for a known title, author, or if you have a few topic keywords. To conduct more advanced searches choose the Advanced Search option, which gives you many more options, including the ability to combine multiple concepts or topics into a single search. 

Basic Search

Step 1: enter topic keywords that describe your topic into search box

example: black speculative films

2. From the search results page, refine search results by format, date, etc. using the filters provided.

3. Browse through the results and if you see a title of interest, click on it for more information, including the subject terms that have been assigned to the item. You can then either click the subject term to see a list of everything in Omni classified under that subject term, or use the subject terms in new keyword searches, which is best done by switching to Advanced Search.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search works best when you have a number of topic words and synonyms or wish to use subject headings. Advanced search is recommended as it provides the researcher with more options and enables greater control over ones search results.

Choose Advanced Search either from the library homepage or from within Omni:

Think of the focus (or key) words that best describe your topic, including synonyms for these topic keywords. Enter the keywords into the search boxes, using connectors (AND, OR) as needed (AND combines your topic words, retrieving only those search results that include all topic words; OR is a broader search that retrieves either of the topic words).

In the following example, synonyms for Black males were combined (using the connector AND) with aspects of popular culture, creating the following search:

"african american men" OR "black men"

AND "popular culture" OR representation OR film OR media

Once you have entered your keywords, you can refine your search results using the filters, such as by format or publication date. 

Browse through the search results and when you locate a title of interest, check the subject headings assigned to the book to identify additional resources on your topic.