Catalogs
- University of Illinois Library CatalogUse 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 CatalogUse 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 windowWorldCat 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.
Searching by subject
Subject headings are metadata (also called controlled vocabulary) terms found in every entry in the library catalog. A human being has studied the item and decided which of these pre-agreed-on terms best describe it. Bear in mind that those terms may be outdated or at times even offensive --they are part of the historical record as well!
A good way to find the relevant subject headings for your topic is to search for a known book (for example, from your syllabus, a reference work, or the footnotes and bibliography of a related reading) in the library catalog, then identify the subject headings in the catalog record:
Use the Advanced Search to search by subject headings specifically (rather than just keywords anywhere).
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:
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new windowA 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.
- Google BooksMassive 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.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text and full-page-image access to books from 1450-1914, and pre-1906 serials. It focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing. The Making of the modern world, part I: 1450-1850 is based on Gale's microfilm collection: Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University. The Making of the modern world, part II: 1851-1914 expands the contents into the early 20th century.
- GallicaDigitized collections from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France). Gallica is "an encyclopaedic and comprehensive library, representative of major French authors and of the various trends of reflection and research over the centuries....priority is given to French-speaking culture; however, some foreign classics are also available in their original language or in a translated version."
- Internet Archive BooksOver 20,000 digitized books. Most of the books in the collection were published before 1923.
- HathiTrust Digital LibraryOver 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.