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Researching Ethnic and Cultural Groups in Los Angeles: Find Books & Media

Books may be searched in the Library Catalog by author, title, Library of Congress Subject Heading or keyword. For books not held by the Oviatt Library, request an Interlibrary Loan or search WorldCat to see if other local libraries have the books you need.

Library Catalog Basic Search

Home page Search Box

Starting from the Library Catalog Basic Search screen you can search by Keyword, Title, Author, or Subject by selecting the radio buttons and typing search words in the text box.

The default Limits setting will search the entire collection. You may also limit your search to smaller sub-collections: Ejournals (electronic periodicals--not specific articles), Ebooks, NCOD (National Center on Deafness), TCC (Teacher Curriculum Center), Periodicals/Serials (not specific articles), Videos, Reference Room, Special Collections, or Sound Recordings by selecting a collection from the drop-down menu.

Searching for a specific Item

Select an Author or Title search if you know the author (last name, first name) or at least the first few words of the title.

Searching for Items by Topic

There are two ways to search the online catalog for resources on a topic: by Keyword or by Subject.

  • A Basic Keyword search will simultaneously look for words in titles of materials, in subject headings, and in notes fields.
  • A Subject search will locate materials by Library of Congress Subject Headings, which is a controlled vocabulary or standard list of subject terms. The Oviatt Library assigns Library of Congress Subject Headings to all items listed in the online catalog.
  • Another way to find the Library of Congress Subject Heading for your topic is to search the catalog by Keyword, display the record for a relevant title, and select one or more of the Subjects listed for that record.

Library Catalog Advanced Search

For an Advanced search, select the Advanced Catalog Search link on the homepage. The Advanced search allows you to search by keyword in up to four separate fields, and optionally limit your search by language, material type, location, collection, publisher, or publication date.

To start your search:

  1. Select the field you want to search (Author, Title, Subject, Note, or "any field") from the first drop-down menu.
  2. Type keyword(s) in the adjacent text box. Two or more words entered together in one search box will retrieve records containing that exact phrase, unless there is no exact match. If there is no exact match for the phrase entered, the system will retrieve records contain all search terms entered, wherever they are in the record.
  3. (OPTIONAL) For a combined search, enter additional keywords into separate search boxes and choose the appropriate Boolean operators (and, or, and not) from the pull-down menu.

Searching for Videos, CDs, DVDs and Other Media in the Library Catalog

  • Many videos, DVDs, CDs and other media formats held by the Oviatt Library are listed in the Library Catalog and located in Music & Media.
  • Instructional media for K-12 are located in the Teacher Curriculum Center.
  • Search for media by Author (director, screenwriter, producer, artist, composer, etc.) and/or Title. Media can also be searched by topic (see Library Catalog Basic Search).
  • Limit search results to media as follows:
    • For videos/DVDs: In the Basic search screen, change View Entire Collection to Videos/DVD in the pull-down menu.
    • For all media types: In the Advanced screen under "Optional Limits" set the "Material Type" pull-down menu to specify the type of media you want.

Viewing Results in the Library Catalog

Select a title to see more information.

Information includes publication information, location, call number and checkout status. Click on the various links to find more items by the same author or in the same subject area.

Locating Book Reviews

The following databases are useful for locating book reviews. Enter the author and/or title of the book as keywords and follow any of the specific instructions listed under each database:

Book Review Digest Plus (Wilson)
Indexes reviews of current fiction and non-fiction from over 8,000 periodicals covered by other Wilson databases and also has over 100,000 full text reviews. 1983- present.
Communication and Mass Media Complete (EBSCOhost)
Locates book reviews from journals and trade publications in communication and mass media. Choose the "book review" option from the document type pulldown menu to limit to book reviews.
JSTOR
Comprehensive archive of back issues of core scholarly journals in the arts, business, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Check the box to limit search to book reviews.
LexisNexis Academic
LexisNexis is a good source for book reviews in newspapers and trade publications. Click on Search by Subject or Topic then click on All News. Enter the book title in the search box. Then click on Advanced Options and click  Book Reviews.
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