HST 112 Neumann: Finding Books
Why Use Books?
You do not need to read an entire book cover to cover in order to use it as a source in your research assignment.
Look at the table of contents to see if there is a chapter that addresses your narrower aspect of a broader topic covered in a book. For example: Is there a chapter about Ohio's response to the opioid epidemic in a book about the broader national response?
Or you can use the book's index to see which specific pages a book contain information about your topic and read only those pages. (For example: Perhaps a book about the opioid epidemic includes information about Ohio drug courts on pages 72-75).
Find Books and Ebooks
Miami University Online Catalog
Search By: Keyword
Limit By: General Topic and Where The Item is Located
Look For: Call Number, Location, and Availability
Request Item from other MU Libraries
Click on the title of an item to find out more information about that item and to get the citation for that item. To find the citation, click on the icon that looks like a yellow piece of paper and says "Cite" when you hover over it. Then find the APA citation, and you can highlight, copy, and paste that into your references page. Always be sure to double-check your copied citations, though. Sometimes formatting, such as italics and hanging indents, aren’t correct. Information is typically in the correct order, but good to double-check that as well.
Change Date Range: by sliding the rule under "Publication Date" or by typing in specific years in the boxes. (red box in screenshot) Your results list will then only include items that were published within your specified date range.
Get Only Ebooks: In the left-hand column, click on the arrow next to "Material Type" and then check the box next to "Electronic Resources". (red arrow in screenshot)
Continue Searching in OhioLINK for unavailable titles. OhioLINK allows you to request books from college and university libraries all over the state of Ohio.
Finding America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
You can also search for books by their title if you know it. Enter the book title in the text box. Then, simply change the dropdown menu below from "keyword" to "title" before you click the search button.
If you title search for America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 in the Miami University Library Catalog, you will see that the University Libraries own 2 copies of the book. In the example below, the copy that says Middletown Textbooks on Reserve can be used at the library or possibly checked out overnight. The copy at Hamilton is available for regular checkout.
However, remember that there are likely many additional copies available for request through the OhioLINK library system. In the example below, the 2003 edition of the book is owned at 14 OhioLINK libraries, and the 1989 edition is held by 13 libraries. You can request that a copy be sent to an MU library for checkout by clicking the grey "Request It" button and completing the form that appears.
