Historical Research: United States History

Use the Library Web site Discovery Advanced Search platform along with the Research Worksheet to find resources for a study of United States History.

The Research Worksheet can be found here: <<http://masters.libguides.com/worksheet>>

Discovery can be found here: <<http://www.masters.edu/library>>

Discovery Advanced can be found here: <<https://masters.on.worldcat.org/advancedsearch?databaseList=>>

NOTE:  Do not use the carrots << >> from the examples below in your search.  These are simply delimiters used to indicate the beginning and ending of the characters to be used in the search. 

For Historical Information About A Country, search Discovery: 

su:united states history

su:united states 18th century

u:united states 20th century

"su:" tells the search engine to search in the Subject field for the following terms, in this instance "united" AND "states" AND "20th" AND "century"

For specific states, counties, cities, or place name use the same search query but replace "united states" with the name of the state, county, city, or other place name.

su:california 21st century

su:los angeles county history

su:los angeles 20th century

For specific events use the same search query but replace "20th century" with the name of the event:

su:united states civil war

su:california gold rush

su:los angeles aqueduct

For General Background Information of US History, use encyclopedias and dictionaries:

Last updated November 17, 2016

From the Powell Library Web site:

Use the Discovery platform

To get information on the customs of a country or people group, simply use <<customs>> as a subject heading.   Add the name of the people group and/or the name of the country or region. For example:

<<su:native americans customs>>

For information on the culture of a country or people group, use the subject <<ethnology>>.  Add the name of the people group and/or the name of the country or region.  For example:

<<su:blacks ethnology>>

NOTE:  Do not use the carrots << >> in the search.  These are simply delimiters used to indicate the beginning and ending of the characters to be used in the search.

MORE SEARCH TECHNIQUES

Option 1:  A very broad keyword search ("keyword" searches all the metadata, i.e. author, title, subject, table of contents, summary, etc.)

<<united states ethn*>> -- This tells the Discovery search engine to look for records containing the terms "united" AND "states" and because of the use of the * (asterisk), Discovery knows to look for the root word "ethn" and any variation thereafter, so it will look for ethnic, ethnicity, ethnograph, ethnography, ethnographic, ethnographies.  Go ahead, try it here . . .

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Option 2:  A focused metadata search -- in this instance the search is limited to the Subject field.  The metadata code used in Discovery is <<su:>>

<<su:united states ethn*>> -- This will limit the search to those records containing these key terms somewhere in the Subject.   Try it here . . .

Search Powell Library Discovery

Option 3: A very focused metadata search --  in this instance the search is limited to the Title field.  The metadata code used in Discovery is <<ti:>>

<<ti:united states ethn*>> -- Here the search is limited to those records containing these key terms somewhere in the Title.  Try it here . . .

Search Powell Library Discovery

Library of Congress Classification System

LC Classification Outline Web site: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html

D – History: General and Old World