Skip to Main Content

HIST 240 The Civil War: Find Books

Why Use Books?

Why Use Books?       

Books...

  • can give you an in-depth analysis of your topic      
  • can get you a historical perspecitve on your topic to see how it has evolved over time
  • often are written by authors who are experts or have taken the time to do research on a particular subject
  • help you understand the complexity your topic

When you find a book...

  • you do not have to read the whole book! Instead look at the table of contents in the front to find which chapters will be most helpful to you
  • look in the back of the book.  Often there is a list of sources that the author consulted when he or she wrote the book.  You might want to use these sources for your research, too!
  • EVALUATE it to determine if it is a credible sources for your research
   **IMPORTANT FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH**
   Get books from other libraries through INTERLIBRARY LOAN (see instructions below)

Find Books in the Holman Library

Search for BOOKS & EBOOKS
in the Primo One Search Tool

 

1. FIRST: Try broad search words relating to your topic, such as:

  • united states civil war women
  • american civil war women
  

2.  NEXT: Try a new search.  Add words to narrow your search, such as:

nurses military
african american medicine
employment homefront
soldiers spies
espionage gender roles
south north
  • Example searches:
    united states civil war women nurses
    united states civil war women military
    american civil war women spies
    american civil war women espionage

3.  ALSO: Brainstorm synonyms or related terms for search words

  • Example: medicine- medical, health, nursing, surgery, hospitals, wounded
     
  • Example searches:
    • united states civil war women medicine
    • united states civil war women surgery
    • united states civil war women hospitals

4. FINALLY refine your results by source type =  "books" 
(see example screenshot at the bottom of this page)

 

Google Books

Find previews of books through GOOGLE BOOKS

1. Search Google Books to find full text or partial text of books online

2. Choose books that indicate "Preview" You may not see entire text of the book, but many of the chapters may be included. You can often find great information in these chapters.

Get Books and Articles from Other Libraries

Interlibrary Loans

Get books and articles from other libraries
  1. Click on the link above. Enter search words to find books that are owned by libraries across the United States
  2. Note down the author, title, publisher, publication date and ISBN number of the book
  3. Make an Interlibrary Loan Request using the following link so that the book can be sent to Green River's Holman Library for you to borrow: Note: this process may take one week
  1. To see an example of how to make a request, click below:

U.S. Civil War - Selected Resources

Make sure that the sources you use from these webpage are actually books, magazines or journals accessible through the webpage.

Do not use the webpage itself as the actual source.

One Search Refine Results by Source Type = Books

Limiting to Books

 

As shown in the image below, you can limit the results in Holman Library One Search to just books by using the "Source Type" limiter of to the left.

  • Here you can select "Books" to view print books (held at the library) or ebooks (that you can access by clicking the link)

(click on image to enlarge)

screen shot of a results page, showing source types