ID 385: Vietnam War

Books

There are several research tips that take your search to the next level. While your topic may not be "historical research", you will still benefit from the search strategies and resources on this page, in particular, WorldCat.

Subject Terms:

Notice other subject terms on book record pages you can use as keywords or searches yourself:

• 
• Watch the video below to see more examples.

Scholarly Monographs

Get in the habit of checking the publisher--university press publishers should be fine to trust as scholarly monographs, as should some standard trade academic publishers (Lexington, Rowman & Littlefield, Routledge, etc). Look for footnotes and endnotes and avoid popular press publishers and popular as opposed to scholarly historians.

Borrowing from other Libraries

You can search in and borrow from other libraries for free--watch the video below to start expanding your options.

Find a Book Review

Scholarly journals, trade journals, highbrow magazines, book review periodicals, and newspapers will all publish book reviews.

1. Search for the book title in quotes or use a keyword from your topic

• If you know the book you want to find reviewed, type the title and put it inside quote marks.
  • You may have to add the author of the book, if the title is the same or similar to another book or a common phrase.
• If you are simply looking for a review of any book on a topic, type your main keyword as a keyword.

2. Limit to Reviews, before or after the search

• To search exclusively for reviews, look for an option to limit to reviews either on the Advanced Search screen of a database or along the side of the search results list after you enter keywords.
  • An example of selecting for reviews ahead of time, in JSTOR:
    • 
  • An example of limiting to reviews after performing a search, in RILM:
    • 

Nearly any of our databases, including OneSearch, will have an option to limit to book reviews, so start your search on the library homepage and go from there.