Research Guides: English, Literature & Writing (UNH Durham): ENGL 806

Search Tips

The main search box on the Library's homepage searches library holdings, items available through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and a selection of our more than 400 subject-specific databases. Search individual catalogs or databases using the individual links below the main search box.

In catalogs, look for relevant Library of Congress subject headings in records found from keyword searches.

Subdivisions can help make your searches more precise. For example:

Personal Narratives - finds first-person accounts
Diaries
Correspondence
Pictorial Works - identifies where more than 50% of a work consists of illustrations
Social life and customs - helps identify works on everyday life
Psychological Aspects
Moral and Ethical Aspects
Economic Aspects

The main Library Search Box on the home page searches many of our several hundred databases plus physical holdings from the UNH library as well as items available through Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

Suggestions when using this include:

Use Advanced Search for more options
Put "compound terms" in quotation marks to keep the concepts together (e.g. "climate change" but not needed for pollution).
Filter using navigation on left-hand side of results list
Be creative and stay flexible

Use the Advanced Search option whenever available (this is often the default). Advance search screens will alert you to ways that you can refine your search using fields specific to that database.

When typing in your search terms, consider using

truncation to search different endings for the same stem; the asterisk is the symbol used by most databases
- Example: pharmac* returns results with the words: pharmacy, pharmacies, pharmacists, pharmaceutical
quotation marks to indicate a phrase or compound term
- Example: "camino de santiago"
Boolean operators (connectors)
- and - tells the system to include all the search words (this creates fewer results)
- or - tells the system to include any one of the words in the search results; use for synonyms or alternative words for the concept you want (this creates more results)

Under Settings:

check that Library Links shows that "University of New Hampshire - Full Text @ UNH" is selected
you can set the Bibliography Manager to show links to export citations to BibTeX (Zotero)

Google.com

Specify the domain to target the sources of your results.

Site:.org - retrieves pages from organization sites. This would eliminate most company and commercial sites but will still include Wikipedia.org results
Site:.edu - retrieves pages from education-related and university sites
Site:.gov - retrieves pages from government sites (US federal, state, some municipalities)

Google Advanced Search
Try the Advanced Search to see options that may help refine your results
Google Advanced Image Search
Check options that may help refine your results

Information Formats to Search

Newspaper Databases
Listing of online individual major newspaper subscriptions and newspaper collections, current and historical. Generally you'll be searching full text.

Search the UNH library catalog by the newspaper title to see if we have it in print, online, or in microfilm. Some newspapers on microfilm include the Union Leader, Concord Monitor, and Foster's Daily Democrat.

City or regional newspapers maybe on microfilm at other libraries. Search the BLC WorldCat catalog and use interlibrary loan to request the microfilm for the date(s) you're interested in.

Chronicling America
Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, 1836-1922, (not just African American papers).

Alternative Press Index
Bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from alternative, radical, and left periodicals. Coverage is both international and interdisciplinary. A comprehensive and up-to-date guide to alternative sources of information. Dates of coverage: 1991-current
Alternative Press Index Archive
Bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from alternative, radical, and left periodicals. Coverage is both international and interdisciplinary. Companion to the Alternative Press Index. Dates of coverage: 1969-1990
Nexis Uni
Provides access to news, business, and legal sources, including US Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Reader's Guide Retrospective
Readers' Guide Retrospective is a database containing comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. Dates of coverage: 1890-1982

America: History and Life with Full Text
Index to sources on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes book and media reviews and citations to abstracts of dissertations as well as journal article citations. Dates of coverage: 1955-current
Humanities Index Retrospective
Provides citations to articles covering a wide-range of humanities and interdisciplinary fields. The sources include core, scholarly English-language periodicals as well as a number of lesser-known but important specialized magazines. Dates of coverage: 1907-1984
JSTOR
A digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources in a wide range of disciplines. Funded in part by the University of New Hampshire Graduate School. Coverage is not designed for current material, thus it does not cover information from the most recent 2 to 5 years.
Project MUSE
Promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide.
APA PsycINFO (EBSCOhost)
Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports in the field of psychology and the psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law. It is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health.
Sociological Abstracts
Abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Dates of coverage: 1952-current

Audio Databases
Images Databases
Video Databases
Maps & Geospatial Databases
Resources for historical and current maps
Library of Congress: Maps
View collections with maps or search across all collections at once.

HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world

OAIster Search
OAIster is a union catalog of millions of records representing open access digital resources. Search for texts, images, etc. from hundreds of digital collections.
Writer's Guide to Government Information: Resources to Inject Real Life Detail into Your Fiction
Covers a wide array of topics and resources

Also consider exploring or contacting local libraries and/or historical societies, special collections and archives at colleges & universities in the area, and organizations or associations related to your topic.

Interlibrary Loan

Do you want something that UNH doesn't own? Borrow items from other libraries--we do all the leg work!

Interlibrary Loan

This also works for getting scans of book chapters and print journal articles that UNH does own, which is a service called Document Delivery.