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History 498B: History of Travel

A course guide.

Library Catalogs

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:

  1. 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.1
  2. 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.

If the Library does not have the book you need, or else the book you need is charged, then you should next search the:

After you have explored the books available to you here at the University of Illinois, and also at other I-Share libraries, you will want to expand your search using:

If you find a book in WorldCat that you would like to use for your research, you can request it through:

Subject Headings in the Library Catalog

Subject headings are used to collocate records for works on a common subject under a single, standardized heading.

The subject headings used in the Library Catalog are standardized Library of Congress terms, which may be “subdivided” (made more specific) by geographic area, chronological period, genre, or sub-topic. The language of subject headings is not at all intuitive or natural, so you shouldn’t hesitate to ask a librarian for help in finding the correct subject headings.

A good way to identify subject headings for a topic is to do a keyword search in the Library Catalog using terms you think describe the topic, in order to identify a few relevant books. Look at the full record for those books to see what subject headings were used, then do another search on those headings.

As a rule of thumb, use fairly broad headings, as well as the specific ones that describe your topic, in order to make sure you haven't inadvertently eliminated relevant material that is contained within works of larger scope. Most likely you will find multiple headings to describe your topic, and you should use all of them. You can narrow your search in the online catalog by combining subject headings (as a phrase) with keywords, using the “Advanced Search” option.

Why bother with subject headings in the online catalog when you can do keyword searching?

It’s true that developing facility with subject headings was more critical in the era of card catalogs. They provided the only subject access to library materials. In online catalogs, you can often identify material on a topic quite easily by searching on keywords. But if you limit yourself to keyword searching, you are likely to miss important material on your topic that uses other terms. For an undergraduate term paper, a keyword search may turn up a few good sources, and that may be sufficient for the purposes of the assignment. But when you’re doing historical research, you won’t want to miss critical material on your topic. A systematic, comprehensive subject search requires searching with subject headings as well as with keywords.

Some Example Subject Headings

  • Travel —History.
  • Travelers —Algeria —History.
  • Voyages and travels —History.
  • Voyages and travels --Early works to 1800.
  • Voyages around the world --Early works to 1800.
  • Europeans —Egypt —History.
  • Europeans --Travel --History.
  • Egypt —Description and travel.
  • Algeria —Description and travel.
  • Explorers —Spain —Biography.
  • Southwest, New —Description and travel.
  • Southwest, New —Discovery and exploration.
  • Travelers —Great Britain.
  • Travelers —England.
  • Women travelers —Biography.
  • Adventure and adventurers.
  • Pilgrims and pilgrimages.
  • Scientific expeditions.
  • Travel writing.
  • Travel writers.
  • Travel in literature.
  • Ocean travel.
  • Travelers' writings, English —History and criticism.
  • Travelers' writings, French.
  • Spaniards --Travel --History.
  • Missions, British.
  • Missions —China.
  • Orientalism.
  • Imperialism.
  • Colonies in literature.
  • Imperialism in literature.
  • South America --Description and travel.
  • Africa —Discovery and exploration.
  • Asia --Description and travel --Early works to 1800.
  • Imperialism in art.
  • Great Britain —Colonies —Bibliography.
  • Great Britain —Army —Colonial forces.
  • Great Britain —Colonies —Periodicals.
  • Soldiers —Great Britain —Correspondence.
  • Virginia --History --Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 --Sources.
  • United States --History --Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 --Sources.
  • Explorers --Portugal.

In order to browse a menu of subject headings, use the Catalog's browse search interface:

Some Example Searches

Use “Advanced Search” to identify subject headings on your topic by searching on keywords, to combine subject headings (or elements from subject headings) in a Boolean search, or to combine keywords from any part of the record with subject headings to narrow your search.

Use the “Browse Search” to browse a subject heading, to locate a work or works by a particular author, or to search by call number for a specific book.

Examples of “Browse Search”:

  • You have identified a subject heading and would like to find all variations (subdivisions), as well as all books in the online catalog that were assigned that heading (“Travelers” or “Voyages and travels”).
  • You have an author’s name and would like to find works by that author (Cook, Thomas).
  • You have a call number for a book and need to know where the book is located in the Library (338.479173048 Sh13s).

Examples of “Advanced Search”:

  • You know words from the title (“theory of travel”), but are not certain of the exact title, and you don’t know the author’s name Use the drop-down menu on the left and select “Title.”
  • You know the author’s last name and also some part of the title (Shaffer, tourism). Construct a Boolean search using “Author Words” and “Title Words.”
  • You want to do a Boolean search on multiple subject terms (“Travel” and “National characteristics”). Use “Subject” for each element.
  • You know there is an “edited volume” containing a chapter on travel narratives about Tahiti by Anna Johnston, but you don’t know the title of the book or the name of the editor. Construct a Boolean search “travel” in "Any Field,"  and “Johnston” in “Author.”
  • You want to combine subject terms (“Travelers”) and keywords (“national identity”). Construct a Boolean search using “Subject” and “Any Field.”

Shelf Browsing

After a new book is assigned subject headings, it is then “classified” according to the Dewey Decimal Classification. UIUC is the largest “Dewey” library in the world. In addition, we use a system called Superintendent of Documents Classification ("SuDocs") for U.S. government publications (based on issuing agency).

In Dewey, the first three numbers indicate the main subject, and additional numbers are added after a decimal point to narrow the subject. Books and journals on historical topics are usually classified in the 900s, although much of social history gets classified in the 300s, and the history of science, technology, and medicine is classified in the 500s and 600s. Religion is classified in the 200s, philosophy in the 100s, literature and literary studies in the 800s, and the fine arts in the 700s.

For more detail on the Dewey Decimal classification consult this Guide to the Dewey Decimal System.

In the 1960s, many libraries adopted the Library of Congress Classification, but by that time the UIUC Library already had more than four million volumes classified in Dewey. Some large academic libraries began using LC classification for new materials and left their older materials in Dewey, splitting their collection in two. Here at UIUC we debated this approach in 1979, but decided against it, primarily because of the potential inconvenience to our readers, who would have to go back and forth between the systems. Eventually we did adopt LC classification for Music, Law, and materials in Asian languages; older materials in those collections were retrospectively converted to LC classification. Many newer acquisitions, across all disciplines, are now being cataloged in LC, resulting in a split collection.

In order to browse the shelves, you need to know this “classification number”. Once you have identified a few books on your topic by doing a subject search in the online catalog, you can browse the shelf under the same general number(s) to find related works. For example, if you know that the book In an Antique Land, by Amitav Ghosh, has the call number 916.2042 G346i, you could go to the Main Stacks or the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library to browse the shelves under the same Dewey number to find related material.

Finding travel literature to use as primary sources is relatively simple with the Dewey Decimal Classification System: begin the Dewey Decimal Classification number for the history of the country or region you are researching, and simply insert a "1" after the "9"; adjust the decimal point accordingly. For example, the Dewey Decimal Classification number for the history of Germany is 943, and the number for works on travel in Germany would therefore be 914.3. The Dewey number for the history of Argentina is 982, and the number for works on travel in Argentina is 918.2. The Dewey number for the history of Buenos Aires, Argentina is 982.11, and the number of works on travel in Buenos Aires is 918.211.

Because so much of the Library collection is now stored in a high density, off-site storage facility, it's no longer possible to browse the collection as completely as it once was. You can, however, do "virtual shelf browsing" using the:

Ebooks

In addition to the 13 million+ printed books available to you here in the Library, we also have a rapidly growing collection of digitized books.

Notes

1. 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.