History Research: United States History Research Strategies

For historical information about the United States use these search query patterns in the Discovery Catalog:

su:united states history

su:united states 17th century

su:united states 18th century

su:united states 20th century

su:united states colonial period

su:united states revolution

su:united states world war I

su:united states world war II

"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. Find them easily with this search query formula:

Last updated November 2024.

Search the Discovery Catalog

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

su:black people ethnology

su:asian ethnology

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.

united states ethn*

"united states" ethn* 

   The quotation marks commands the search engine to treat the terms as a phrase rather than two distinct search terms.

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.  

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. 

Option 4: Another very focused metadata search -- in this instance the search is limited to the Author field.  The metadata code use in Discovery is ....you guessed it .... au:

au:gregg frazer -- Here the search is limited to those records containing these key terms belonging to an Author.

Last updated November 2024.

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