HIS210 - Africa from Colonialism to Independence (McEntegart Library): Find Books

When looking for books, use broad keywords to get more results! Try searching for the:

• Time Period (i.e. 20th-Century Africa)
• Geographic Location (i.e. "West Africa")
• Synonyms or Alternate Spellings (i.e. "Ivory Coast" OR "Côte d'Ivoire")

Example:

If I'm looking for books on the Kikuyu, some keyword searches I may try in the catalog are:

• Kikuyu OR Gikuyu
• Kenya
• "East Africa"
• Mau Mau 
• (British OR England) AND Colon* AND Africa*

Search Tips: 

• Use an asterisk * to find word variants (i.e. Colon* = Colony, Colonies, Colonial, Colonialism, etc.)
• Put your keywords in quotes to search for an exact phrase (i.e. "Gold Coast")
• Mix & match keywords to yield different results!
• Struggling to come up with keywords for your search? Try looking for your topic in Credo Reference to get some ideas!

Primary Source Databases

Looking for primary sources?! Click the link below to search through our primary source databases:

How to Search for Books in the Catalog

• From the Library's homepage, use the Discovery search box in the middle of the webpage to look for books & eBooks. 
• Type in your keywords in the "Search Term" search box.
• Under Choose Format, select Books from the dropdown menu. This will narrow down your search to books and eBooks.
• Click the "Go" button to perform your search.

Use Filters to Narrow Down Your Results

• Once you perform a Discovery search, you will find a list of limiters under the "Search Tools" menu on the left-hand side of your results list.
• Under the Format heading, you'll see a few checkboxes.
  • If you only want to see eBooks (electronic books), click on the checkbox next to eBook.
  • If you only want to see print books that are physically located in the library, click on the Print Book checkbox.

How to Find Print Books in the Library

• When you're going through your search results in the catalog, look to see where the book is located. Some common locations you may see:
  • Circulating Collection - 2nd Floor (available for checkout)
  • Circulating Collection - 3rd Floor (available for checkout)
  • Reference Collection - 1st Floor (Library-Use Only / NOT available for checkout)
  • Curriculum Collection - 1st Floor (children's & juvenile books / available for checkout)
• Next to the item's location is the call number. Use this call number to find the book on the shelf.
  • Most books on Africa will be located on the second floor in the "DT" call number range.

Need a book that McEntegart Hall Library doesn't own?

Visit another NY library!

• Search the other library's online catalog for an item
• Visit our Reference Desk for a referral card
• Visit the other library to study & borrow items