MONT 152Q: Foundation and Crisis (Armenti)

Print and Electronic Books in the Library

Use the Library Catalog to find print books, print journals, and ebooks in the library's collection. Access the Library Catalog search through the library home page (https://www.holycross.edu/library). Above the search bar, select "Library Catalog." To use more advanced searching options, click on the "My Library Account" link below the search bar to go directly to the catalog, where you can search by keyword, title, subject, or call number. 

Books on the shelves are organized by call number. A call number is an address for a book that tells you where the book is located on the shelf. Call numbers identify different subject areas, so books with similar call numbers will cover similar subjects. This way, when you find a book on the shelf, you know the books around it are on similar topics.

When you look up a book in CrossSearch or the Library Catalog, you will see the call number listed with the book details. The handout linked below shows how to read a call number and where call numbers are located in Dinand Library.

Library Catalog Search Tips

Books and materials in the library catalog are assigned subject terms. These are specific words or phrases used to group books about the same subject together. In the Library Catalog Search, you can search for a subject or browse by subject. Use the dropdown menu next to the search bar to select "Subject."

Suggested subject terms:

Research Tip: When researching works that are part of an established canon of literature, the titles and authors of those works might be existing subject terms. For example, The Epic of Gilgamesh is assigned the subject terms Gilgamesh > (Legendary character); Gilgamesh; Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian; and Folklore > Iraq. You can use these subject terms to search for the work itself and for related works, analysis, and criticism. 

WorldCat

WorldCat (short for World Catalog) is the world's largest online library catalog that includes library records for thousands of books. You can search for a specific title or author, or search for a subject to find books on that subject. The same subjects listed in the Library Catalog section can be used to search WorldCat. When you find a book in WorldCat, you can see if Holy Cross has the book. If we do, you will see a link to our catalog.

If Holy Cross does not have the book you find, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan. On the WorldCat page for the book, look for a box that says Access Options. Then, click on Request Item through Interlibrary Loan. This will take you to the Holy Cross Libraries' Interlibrary Loan request system where it will automatically fill in the book information from WorldCat. Simply review the information and click submit! We will then try to locate the book for you from another library. It will be delivered to Dinand Library for you to pick up.

About Databases

Databases are tools designed to help you find and use different publications available to you in the library. Think of a database like a big, digital storage unit. Each database holds many academic journals, newspapers, magazines, and other publications. These publications are arranged, labeled, and organized to make it possible for you to search and find what you're looking for. The Holy Cross Libraries subscribe to over 300 databases for you to use. A lot of what is stored in a database is not available through a simple internet search. As a Holy Cross student, you can access thousands of academic journal articles, news sources, books, and more at no cost. To see the full list of databases available, visit our A-Z Database List.

Some suggested databases for Classics and World Literature are listed below.

CrossSearch

CrossSearch is a one-stop search tool that lets you search most of the informational resources available through the library, including:

• Books, ebooks, archival materials, media and music scores owned by the Holy Cross Libraries.
• Research databases like Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, ARTstor and ProQuest Central.
• E-journal collections like JSTOR and ScienceDirect.
• The Holy Cross digital repository CrossWorks.
• Open Access collections such as HaithiTrust Digital Library

As you can see, CrossSearch looks in many different places and for many different types of sources. In one search, you might see results for academic journal articles, books in the library’s collection, films, newspaper articles, and more. This can be a good place to start if you want to see a broad scope of the resources available on your topic. However, because CrossSearch includes so many types of resources, you might find you need to filter these results more than you would in a more specific database.

CrossSearch is best accessed through the library home page (https://www.holycross.edu/library).

Combine Search Terms

You can use the words AND, OR, and NOT to combine your search terms for precise searching. 

Use AND to combine your search terms. Each search result with include all of the terms. This can help narrow your results.

• If you are looking for secondary literature around a specific theme or topic, trying searching for the title of the work AND that theme. For example, gilgamesh AND heroism will find results that include both terms.

Use OR to find results that contain at least one of your search terms. This can help you broaden your results, and can be good to use if the subject you're searching for is referred to in different ways.

• Searching for analysis OR criticism will show results that include either term, which can help you find a range of responses and reactions to a work.

Use NOT to exclude terms from your results. This can help you narrow your topic by removing a related term that you are not interested in finding sources about. 

• For example, in this class you are reading selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This has a similar title to another famous literary work, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. To make sure you're seeing results about Ovid's epic poem, you can search metamorphoses NOT kafka. You can also use Ovid as a search term to make sure you're getting results about the specific work you're looking for.

Group Words Together

When you're researching works that have titles made up of multiple words, use "quotation marks" to search for a phrase instead of individual words. 

For example, if you enter the epic of gilgamesh into a database search, it will look for each word separately, which may bring back results that only include the word epic or are about Gilgamesh the person instead of the poem. Instead, put the phrase in quotation marks and search "the epic of gilgamesh" to show results that include the entire phrase.