Getting Started: Searching the Library Catalog

The library catalog is a great place to start your research. Here are some tips to make searching more effective:

1. Make sure that you sign in. This allows you to see your access options for library materials, save searches, set notifications on saved searches, and save items to your favorites.
2. Use Boolean operators if you're doing a keyword search. For example:
   • "Latin American Independence" AND "Simón Bolívar" - This search will return only materials that mention both topics together.
   • "Colonial Latin America" AND ("social structures" OR "economic systems") - This will broaden your search to include materials discussing either social structures or economic systems within colonial Latin America.
   • "Mexican Revolution" AND "Zapatistas" NOT "Chiapas" - This will reduce your search results by excluding materials that mention "Chiapas."
   • Make sure that you enter Boolean operators in all caps: AND, OR, NOT
3. Use truncation and/or wildcards. For example:
   • Entering the search term Revol*- This will return results for revolution, revolutionary, revolutions, etc.
   • Entering the search term wom?n will return results for woman, women
4. Group your terms using parenthesis to do multiple searches at once. For example:
   • ("Latin American trade" OR "colonial economy") AND "Spain" - This will bring up results on either Latin American trade or the colonial economy in relation to Spain.
5. Narrow your results to a specific genre, place, or time. For example:
   • "Inca Empire" AND "South America" AND "pre-Columbian"
   • "Cuban Revolution" AND "United States" AND "1960s"

How To Read Call Numbers

This is an explanation of how books with Library of Congress call numbers are sorted.  This gives a better understanding of Library of Congress shelving.

1. The first line is always a letter line and is filed alphabetically.
2. The second line is a whole number line and is filed numerically.
3. Sometimes the second line has a decimal and continued on the same line or the third line.  Anytime you see a decimal point, always take each space separately.
4. Other lines may include volume numbers, copy numbers, dates, or a combination.
5. No dates come before a date.

EXAMPLES OF PRIMARY SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA:

Ecclesiastical documents: Church records, baptismal and burial registers; accounts of the establishment and administration of missions; descriptions of religious practices of Native peoples; missionary and land-owning activities of the Jesuit, Franciscan, and Dominican orders; Inquisition proceedings and correspondence.

Legal documents: land titles; wills and testaments; powers of attorney; judicial petitions and proceedings; criminal cases; genealogies to establish purity of bloodlines, nobility, or right of inheritance.

Colonial administrative papers: reports of viceroys and governors; cedulas, directives from the Spanish king; official correspondence; mercedes, or land grants; treasury and tax records; military reports; population statistics; commerce and smuggling reports.

Travel literature: journals and letters from explorations; reports on discoveries to the viceroys and king; maps

Visual Materials: original art including but not limited to paintings, drawings, sculpture, architectural drawings and plans; manuscript music scores; musical instruments; sheet music.

EXAMPLES OF PRIMARY SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF MODERN LATIN AMERICA:

Government documents: the hearings and debates of legislative bodies; the official text of laws, regulations and treaties; records of government expenditures and finances; statistical compilations such as census data; investigative reports; scientific data.

Printed or Published Texts: books and pamphlets.

Legal Documents: contracts, police reports, judicial proceeding and petitions, criminal cases.

Personal documents: autobiographies, memoirs, correspondence, diaries.

Serials: newspapers, magazines; journals.

Travel and personal literature: journals and letters from explorations; diaries; memoirs; correspondence; maps

Visual Materials: Original art, including but not limited to paintings, drawings, sculpture, architectural drawings and plans, and monoprints; Prints; Graphic arts, including materials such as posters, trade cards, and computer generated graphics; photographs; film and video

Oral history: Oral history interviews and video memoirs