CLAS 100: Opening Classics (Candelora/Knott): Modern Sources

FINDING ARTICLES (and CHAPTERS) IN RESEARCH DATABASES

Research Databases are tools designed to help you search the scholarly (and other) articles and resources available to you through the Holy Cross Libraries.  Article databases are like very long bibliographies of articles that might interest you -- some that are available physically at Holy Cross, some available online, and some that we have to borrow from other libraries. 

We have access to over 300 databases! 
The box below has a list of recommended databases for the Early Global project. 

SEARCHING FOR BOOKS:

CrossSearch is the Libraries' multi-search "discovery" tool. CrossSearch searches a cross-section of journal articles, newspapers, CDs, images, and many other types of resources available through the libraries. It is also our main library catalog -- the tool you use to find books, journals, films, and other items physically located in the library, as well electronic versions of those items. .

To leave out individual articles and focus on things like books and films, you can use the Catalog Only limit in CrossSearch. 

If you would like to learn more, watch our video guide to CrosSearch. If you're not a CrossSearch fan, you can also use the Library Catalog to find books. 

Try searching for books using a very basic keyword search. Books tend to be on broad topics, so the terms you search with should be broad, too! Once you've found a few books that look interesting to you, you can use clues from the books to help you find other books. For example.... 

• Call Numbers. Books on similar subjects are in similar areas of the library. For example, if you search for books about the Egyptian pyramids you would see pretty quickly that many books have call numbers starting with DT63 (or nearby). This means you can easily go to that section of the library and look through the books in person! 
  
  
• Vocabulary. Check the records in the library catalog for vocabulary in the tables of contents, titles, descriptions or other information that you might use for future searches. 
   
• Subjects. Every book in our catalog is marked with at least 1 "tag" that tells you what the book is mostly about, and links together other books on that same topic. You can click on the tags to find a list of all other books using that tag.
  

FINDING YOUR WAY IN THE LIBRARY: 

At Holy Cross, we organize our books using a system called Library of Congress Classification or LCC. LCC is based on the subject of the books. Each letter represents a specific subject. Each subject is broken down into more specific letter sections, each of which is further broken down into number ranges for specific topics. Most call numbers have additional  numbers and letters on the end of them, which are used to give each book a unique spot on the library shelves. 

Generally: 

• Reference Books are in the Main Reading Room. These books must stay in the library.
• Books whose numbers begin with letters A through G are on the Mezzanine level (1 floor down from the Main Reading Room).
• Books whose numbers begin with N or TR are in the Visual Arts Wing on the main level. 
• Books whose numbers begin with letters H through Z are mostly on the Ground (bottom) level.
• Books whose numbers begin with M are in the Music Library in Brooks Hall.
• Books whose numbers begin with Q, R, S or T are in the Science Library in Swords Hall.

The Stacks Guide handout attached below has more information about how the stacks are organized, and the best places for you to look. 

You can also watch our call numbers tutorial to learn more about how call numbers work. Or, visit the Library of Congress Classification website to learn more about how the call number system is organized. 

Here are some of the general sections you might visit for this class: 

C, for archaeology 
D, for history
N, for artistic depictions, architecture, etc. 
P, for literature

OTHER LIBRARIES:

When researching art and archaeology, you may see many books of interest in a location beginning with WAM (WAM Reading Room, WAM Stack Room). These books are held by the Worcester Art Museum Library, one of our Holy Cross Libraries.  As Holy Cross students, you have multiple ways to access these books! 

• Visit WAM yourself (free with your HC ID!) and check out a book in-person; 
• Use the Request button for these books in the Library Catalog (click on the book title, then scroll all the way down and look under the call number: 
   
• Place an Interlibrary Loan request (in which case you may get WAM's copy, or one from another library). 

FOLLOWING REFERENCES

Good researchers don't read books or articles in a vacuum! They use the sources or information they have already found, as clues to where they should look next. References (that is, citations -- in the text, in footnotes, and/or in a bibliography) are a source for research leads. 

As you read an article or a chapter, you will usually see that the author has worked citations into their writing. This may be in the form of an in-text citation (the same kind you will use for this course!)...

(Frahm 2017, 194)
A tablet from Assurbanipal’s library, SBTU 2, no. 46, was found in a library in Uruk whose owner was active during the time of Alexander the Great, and there are hints that scholars in Uruk used text editions strongly influenced by Assyrian traditions (Beaulieu 2010).

...a footnote, where numbers in the text correspond to citations below...

(Frahm 2004, 47) 
Other commentaries seem to have been imported from Babylonia, as can be inferred from the so-called "Library records", which mention satu and mukallimtu commentaries from cities in the south.¹⁹ Commentaries written in Babylonian script were actually found on Kuyunjik,²⁰ and some of them may be identical with those mentioned in the "Library records". 
¹⁹ S. Parpola, "Assyrian Library Records," JNES 42 (1983), 1-29; a new edition is provided in SAA 7, Nos. 49-56.

...or an endnote, where numbers in the text correspond to citations at the very end of the article, chapter or book.

Regardless of the format, these citations are your roadmap to finding out which sources the experts have read on this topic -- and therefore, which sources you may also want to read!

First, find the full citation. 

• In-text citations usually consist of the author's last name, a publication date, and page numbers. To identify the source, go to the bibliography or references list at the end of the article or chapter, and find the citation that matches the author and date. For example, this is what Beaulieu 2010 looks like in the bibliography: 
  
  Beaulieu, P.A. 2010. “The Afterlife of Assyrian Scholarship in Hellenistic Babylonia,” in: J. Stackert et al. (eds.), Gazing on the Deep: Near Eastern and Other Studies in Honor of Tzvi Abusch  Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1– 18.
   
• Footnotes and endnote citations may consist of only a name, a year, and a page number, or might contain a full citation. If only the author's name, date and page are listed, look above and at the previous pages -- there is usually an earlier note with the full citation information. 

Second, identify -- what kind of source is it? 

1. Which part is in italics? 
   • If the citation has one main title which is in italics,  it is most likely a book (it could also be a website or report, but you won't see these often in your sources!) 
     Seider, Aaron M. 2013. Memory in Vergil's Aeneid: Creating the Past. Cambridge University Press.
      
   • If the citation has a title "in quotation marks" towards the beginning, and another title in italics towards the end, the source is likely either a journal article or a book chapter. 
     Knott, Elizabeth. 2021. "Mari's Investiture Scene and the Visualization of Kingship in the Old Babylonian Period." In As Above, So Below: Religion and Geography, edited by Gina Konstantopoulos and Shana Zaia. Penn State University Press.  
      
2. Is there a publisher (like "University of Chicago Press") or publication city anywhere in the citation? 
   • If yes, then the citation is most likely either to a book, or a part of a book (a chapter). 
     Knott, Elizabeth. 2021. "Mari's Investiture Scene and the Visualization of Kingship in the Old Babylonian Period." In As Above, So Below: Religion and Geography, edited by Gina Konstantopoulos and Shana Zaia. Penn State University Press.  
      
   • If there is no publisher, but instead you see a volume and/or issue listed (this could be vol. 1, no. 2; 1, no. 2; or 1 (2), among other formats) it is most likely a journal article. 
     Candelora, Daniella. 2018. "Entangled in Orientalism: How the Hyksos Became a Race." Journal of Egyptian History 11(1-2): 45-72.  Historical Abstracts. 

​​Finally, locate the source. 

• If the source is a book, follow the instructions on the Finding Books tab, but instead of keywords, search for the title of the book. Putting the title "in quotation marks" will help make your search more accurate! If the book title has multiple parts, you can just use the first part. 
  For example, to find Prof. Seider's book cited above, we would search for, "Memory in Vergil's Aeneid" 
   
• If the source is a book chapter, follow the instructions on the Finding Books tab, but instead of keywords, search for the title of the book (not the chapter!). Putting the title "in quotation marks" will help make your search more accurate! If the book title has multiple parts, you can just use the first part. 
  Once you find the book, use the table of contents to find the specific chapter. 
  For example, to find Prof. Knott's book chapter cited above, we would search for, "As Above, So Below" 
   
• If the source is a journal article, you have a few different options: 
  • Search CrossSearch or Google Scholar for the title of the article "in quotation marks."
    For example, "Entangled in Orientalism: How the Hyksos Became a Race"
     
  • Use the Find a Journal tab on CrossSearch and search for the title of the journal. 
    For example, "Journal of Egyptian History"
    Then, find the year, volume, issue and page number that match the citation. 
    
     Instructions for using the E-Journals search to find articles