Renaissance or Early Modern Culture: Online Catalog

It is possible to do a quick and dirty, one box keyword search, starting at the left side of the Libraries' home page.  The results will be sorted into several categories to follow up on:  articles from journals, books/media from our online catalog, databases, library research guides like this one, other.  To do a more traditional search, read on.

Below the general search box, click on Books and Media to search for physical, paper/cloth bound books, paper/cloth bound journals, physical media, such as DVDs or microforms, or individually cataloged electronic items. 

In Books and Media, click on the down arrow on the right side of the form where it says "Catalog."  Choose the type of search you want to do.  In the box to the right put in your search terms.  Enter author's name either last name, first name or first name last name.  Omit initial articles in book titles; include them as they occur within the book title itself.  To search by L.C. subject heading it may be better to use the Browse Alphabetically Browse by Subject lower down in the list than Catalog: Subject, because those results will show the surrounding subject headings and number of hits retrieved.  

Advanced search allows for combination of more than one search aspect, such as author and title, subject and keywords, or several rows of keywords (Any Field).   You can also confine your results to particular parts of our Collections, by using the Location area on lower right.

Below the general search box on the Home Page, click on E Books and Journals to search for journals in electronic form of individual electronic books that will have been received by the Library in a package.  You may need to check both Books and Media and E Books and Journals to find your electronic book.

Library of Congress List of Subject Headings shows the standardized words and phrases our catalogers use to describe the works in our Collections, regardless of whether those words appear in the title of the item or not.  It is a set of fat, red books found in the Reference Collection, first floor East, at Z 696...  Or, use keyword search (Any Field) until finding a really useful book on the topic. Then, within the catalog record, notice the subject headings for that book. Click on the most useful subject headings and you will be taken to other books with those subject headings, if we have any. The L.C. sub-headings “social life and customs”, “social conditions” or “social and economic conditions” are sometimes used under the main subject headings to describe daily life kinds of topics.

Another way to find useful material is by following up on the suggested further readings found in encyclopedias, dictionaries, and general texts in this field.  These are recommended in other sections of this research guide.  Look up the author (surname first) and/or title of the work in Books and Media.

Here are some potentially useful and commonly used L.C. subject headings for this kind of research, taken from the LCLSH. Use Books and Media, Browse Alphabetically Browse by Subject search.