LibGuides: History 370: Colonial American History: 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 can identify the location within the Library of a particular book. If the book is an ebook, then you can link directly to the ebook.
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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.

Digitized Book Collections

For books printed before 1800, see the resources listed under "Books+" on the Primary Sources tab of this guide. The collections below include books from all time periods.

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.