LibGuides: History 498: History and Violence in Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World: Find Books

Catalogs

University of Illinois Library Catalog
Use the Library Catalog to identify books, journals (but not journal articles), microform collections, and digital collections owned by the University of Illinois. The Library Catalog is the primary tool for exploring the collections of the University of Illinois Library, the second largest academic library collection in the United States. In the Library Catalog you can search for books by subject, and you identify the location within the Library of a particular book or journal. Books and journals are organized in the library by subject. Each item is assigned one or more subject headings and a unique call number. Subject headings are standardized terms from the Library of Congress. The call number is based on the Dewey Decimal Classification or Library of Congress Classification. Boolean operators must be capitalized if used: AND, OR, NOT. Interface automatically truncates some search terms unless Boolean operators are used within the same query line. You can also browse catalog records by call number, creating a "virtual shelf browsing" experience.

I-Share Catalog
Use the I-Share catalog to find books not available at the University of Illinois (either because another patron has already charged this book, or because the book isn't part of the collection here). I-Share is a single catalog through which you can search and request books from the collections of 85+ academic and research libraries in Illinois. You request books from a participating I-Share library the same way you request books from University of Illinois libraries—simply click the "Request Item" tab, log in to your account (the same account you use to manage books you have borrowed from the University of Illinois Library), and complete the request. Books requested from I-Share libraries usually arrive withing three to four days, and you will receive an email when your book is ready to be picked up. You can borrow I-Share books for 4 weeks, and renew each book up to 3 times (for a maximum circulating period of 16 weeks).

WorldCat This link opens in a new window
WorldCat is a worldwide union catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 member institutions. With millions of online records built from the bibliographic and ownership information of contributing libraries, it is the largest and most comprehensive database of its kind. You can also use WorldCat on the FirstSearch platform.

What is a Library Catalog?

When researching in a library, especially a research library, its catalog is probably the most important tool you will use, and one with which you should familiarize yourself as quickly as possible. Even if you think you have never used the Library Catalog here, you probably have and just do not realize it, since "Easy Search", the Library's federated search engine, sends all queries to the Library Catalog along with several other online research tools.

A library catalog is a database of records that identify and describe resources owned by the library. Most of these records describe published resources like books. Use the catalog to find both print sources and digitized sources in the Library's collections.

Many research libraries today will dress their catalogs up with fancy interfaces, making the catalogs appear to have far greater functionality than they actually do. You will be a much better user of library catalogs if you understand the purpose and functions of library catalogs, which are in fact very basic:

The catalog should be an efficient instrument for ascertaining:
- Whether the library owns a particular work specified by its title;
- Whether the library owns a particular work specified by its author;
- Which works by a particular author are in the library;
- Which editions of a particular work are in the library.*
The catalog should collocate records for works on a common subject under a single, standardized heading.

Digitization of library catalogs has made it possible to perform keyword searches on the records in the catalog. Aside from this innovation, and a few other conveniences, the library catalogs of today are essentially identical (in function) to library catalogs created a hundred years ago.

* According to the International Federation of Library Associations, Statement of Principles: Adopted at the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles, Paris, October 1961, ed. Eva Verona, Definitive ed. (London: International Federation of Library Associations Committee on Cataloguing, 1971), xiii.

Digitized Book Collections

The Library has several large digitized book collections. Many of the books in these collections can be discovered by searching in the Library Catalog, but each collection also has its own search interface. Below are some of the digitized book collections most useful for this course:

Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Reproduces works listed in: Pollard & Redgrave's Short-title catalogue, Wing's Short title catalogue and Thomason tracts, online via ProQuest Direct.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which has aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; general reference. Also included are significant collections of women writers of the eighteenth century, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare. Where they add scholarly value or contain important differences, multiple editions of each individual work are offered.
Early European Books Collection II This link opens in a new window
Early European Books Collection II contains early printed volumes from the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (the National Central Library of Florence). The selection of works focuses on four collections of particular historic and bibliographic importance within the library’s holdings from this period: The Nencini Aldine Collection, Marginalia, Incunabula, and Sacred Representations.
Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books, pamphlets and broadsides printed in America from 1639-1800. Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans (14 vols., 1903-34, 1955-59); and subsequent bibliographic works by Roger Bristol, James Mooney and Clifford Shipton. This database includes more than 1,000 works located, catalogued and digitized since the completion of the earlier microfilmed set, Early American Imprints, 1639-1800, which was also based on Charles Evans' American Bibliography.
Early American Imprints, Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America from 1801 through 1819. Contains many state papers and government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; and congressional, state and territorial resolutions. Based on the American Bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, which is now supplemented by thousands of new items. Allows browsing by genre, subject, author, printing history, place of publication, and language. Allows searching in citation text, title, subject, genre, author, place of publication, publisher, and document number. Cross-searchable with other Archive of Americana collections.

Google Books
Massive searchable database of scanned books, journals, and magazines. Full text of out-of-copyright material and excerpts of copyright-protected material provided by publishers. Keyword searching (resulting in page references) of copyright-protected material.
Internet Archive Books
Over 20,000 digitized books. Most of the books in the collection were published before 1923.
HathiTrust Digital Library
Over 17 million books, periodicals, and government documents digitized by Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and research libraries. About 2,500,000 of these works can be read online (because they are public domain works, and therefore freely accessible).

Interlibrary Loan

At some point in your research, you will likely identify a book that the Library does not own, and that is not available through I-Share. You can have the Library borrow a copy of the book or journal article from a library that does own it. Because these are loans between libraries (our library borrows it on your behalf from another library), this service is called interlibrary loan. To initiate an interlibrary loann, you will use a tool called Illiad:

ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan)
If the item is not available in the Illinois catalog and it is not available through I-Share, then your next stop will be Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery. Login to Interlibrary Loan using your NetID and password. If you are requesting a book, then select "Request a Book". If you are requesting a journal article, then select "Request a Photocopy". Be sure to fill out as much of the form as possible. You'll be notified by email when your item is ready to be picked up. If you requested a journal article, it will probably be sent to you electronically as a PDF.