Whether they be primary or secondary sources, books will be of major importance to you. In History, they cannot be ignored.
Find print and eBooks available through the Gumberg Library. You will find the search box on the Gumberg Library homepage. Click the Advanced search link below the search box to see options to take control of your searching. Once on the Advanced search interface, choose the search limit "All Gumberg Specialized Collection Catalogs" to limit your search result to print and eBooks owned or accessed through Gumberg Library.
To use DUQSearch, you will need to enter your Multipass username and password when prompted, and authenticate using DUO.
Using Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Classic Catalog breaks down a subject using standard alphabetically-arranged subdivisions. Contains print books only, but it can quickly get you to books on a narrow aspect of a larger topic.
How to Access Print Books from the Gumberg Library
You have two options for getting print books at Gumberg Library. First, when you find the book in DUQSearch copy down the call number (the unique number for the book) Then stop at the front desk and ask if someone can help you find the book with that call number. We are moving materials around from floor to floor now, so finding books on you own, at this point, might be difficult. Front desk staff will be happy to help you.
You can also request that a book be pulled from the book stacks and held for you, or even mailed to you. Click "How to Access Print Books from the Gumberg Library" above to learn how to do these things.
WorldCat is the world's largest library catalog. We would use this to find any books that had been written on a topic, that are not available at Gumberg Library. WorldCat will tell us which libraries own these items, which can then be borrowed through EZBorrow or Interlibrary Loan.
Click a search link directly below to see all books under that subject in the DUQSearch online catalog.
Find Books on a Specific Film
Type the title of the film in the first search box. Put double quotation marks around it to make the search engine look for that exact title. This will bring up every book (and video) where the name of the film appears, though these books may not be only on that film.
Example: "Apocalypse Now"
Sometimes it might help to narrow things if you add the director's name in the second search box.
Find Books on a Person, Place, Thing, Event
In the first search box, type the name of a person from history, place, thing, or event, followed in that same search box by the words in motion pictures. Change the menu to the right of the search box to "SU Subject Terms." If that strategy does not get you much, then change the menu on the right back to "Select a Field (optional)."
Example 1
Example 2
However, if the person you want to search for is a movie director, type their name in the first search box and then change the menu to the right to "SU Subject Terms" to find all books about that director. You could do the same thing with the names of movie stars or film producers., or any person, for that matter
Find Books on World War I and World War II
The Library of Congress, the authority on cataloging books, does now use terminology like "World War I" or Second World War." To find all books about either of these wars and the movies use the following subject headings:
World War 1914-1918 motion pictures and the war
World War 1939-1945 motion pictures and the war
Example 1
Example 2
It is best to be specifc, if you can be, when it comes to topics. You might search for something broad like "War in motion pictures, but it would probably be better to look for books or articles on a specific war and how it was treated in motion pictures. You could even be more specific, searching for particular battles, or countries, or events, or people as they are portrayed in motion pictures.
You could also search for the titles of specific films for information just about those films.
Below are some links that will search the DUQSearch online catalog for books on the broad topics your teacher has suggested, and which are listed on the first page of this guide, though you will find that some topics do not appear in the list on this page--because Gumberg Library does not own books on those topics. But you might find journal articles on them. But, again, it may be helpful to be more specific. Also, the terminonlgy I have used in creating these links is based on the language the Library of Congress uses in catalog records for books. For finding articles in databases, you might want to use different terminology.
