History 188C: World War I and World War II

Keywords
Keywords are the words that you already use to describe what it is you are researching.  This may be your own vocabulary or it can be terms you discovered from doing some initial exploring or terms you found in a basic encyclopedia article.

Subject Headings
Subject Headings are terms that librarians apply to items in the catalog.  This is a controlled vocabulary meaning that they are published and you must use the proper syntax in order for them to work.  Their power lies in the fact that they are systematically applied so when you discover one that accurately describes your research topic, you can use it in a search and guarantee that you have found everything on that topic.

Here are some examples of Subject Headings appropriate for this class:

World War, 1914-1918
World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence
World War, 1914-1918 -- Social aspects -- United States
World War, 1939-1945

Browsing is another good research strategy.  When you find a book in Catalyst that looks like it will work for your research project, go to that location in the library and find that book.  Then, browse that book section to see if there are other books that will work for you.

The libraries at St. Olaf use the Library of Congress Classification.   Here is a brief outline of how books about Great Britain are organized:

• D501 - D680: World War I
• DA720 - DA728: Period between World Wars (1919-1939)
• DA731 - DA838: World War II
• D839 - DA860: Post-war history (1945-  )

The D section is located on the 5th floor of Rolvaag