HIST 150: The Family in Premodern Europe (Fall 2024)

• You can also use the catalog to find chapter using the "chapter" limiter on the left.

• Start with keywords.
• Limit to books & ebooks.
• Pay attention to Subject terms!
  • Once you find the subject terms for your topic, you can find every recent book on your topic
• Any book in the catalog, even if it's at the Law library or Colonial Williamsburg Foundation library, can be picked up at Swem. Just use the request button in the catalog record.

Pay attention to subject terms

NOTE: once you know they subject terms for your topic, they'll work in every database, including WorldCat & America: History and Life

Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.

AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: medieval AND midwives

OR - searches for one of the words. Example: orphans OR foundlings

NOT - exclude a term. Example:  Brit* NOT Brittany

Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (Concubines OR concubinage) AND women = articles about concubines or concubinages for women
Example: (conception NOT immaculate) AND science =  articles about science of conception, excluding works about the immaculate conception

Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "middle ages"
Example: "late antiquity"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Henry II of England" will omit instances where he's just Henry II.  "High Middle Ages" will omit results where it's just "middle ages"

Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: widow* will cover widow, widows, widowhood, 
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood.
Example: Brit* will give you British, Britain, Brits.
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* will also yield Brittany, Britons, and Britches. Widow* brings up widowers.  Wom* will include wombat.