Finding Books
Books are useful for research because they:
- Give in-depth coverage of a topic
- Often provide background information on a topic
- Can be used to get an overview of a topic
- Demonstrate how a research topic relates to broader, narrower and related issues
At UCLA there are two different library catalogs to search for materials:
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UC Library Search This link opens in a new windowLists everything held (owned or licensed) by the UCLA Library and many other campus collections. That includes books, journals, magazines, newspapers, videos, DVDs, and microfilm. It contains up-to-the-minute status information on what's checked out, allows online renewal, and recall for books that are checked out.
Tips for Book Searching
When searching for books, here are a few strategies to start with:
- If you are not sure of where to start, do a KEYWORD search for relevant terms or phrases; Put the phrases in "quotation marks".
- If you already have a relevant book or article in hand, use its bibliography/references to find other sources.
- Do a subject heading search in a catalog (see box to the far left).
- Use ? to truncate a word, e.g., american? will retrieve american and americans.
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Recommended Book Titles
Click on titles for complete information
