Use the library catalog to find materials on your topic.
Be sure to limit to books and ebooks to filter out all the articles, newspapers, etc.
Import tip: use Iran as a subject heading to narrow your results.
Example searches:
Not Sure Where To Start?
Run a subject search for Iran, then limit to books and ebooks. You'll get about 7,000 results.
On the left, use the subjects field to see what topics other scholars are studying.
Most books on the history of Iran are on the 2nd floor in the DS 200's section.
Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: Iran AND Women AND politics
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: Tehran OR Mashhad
NOT - exclude a term. Example: Iran AND "foreign relations" NOT "united states"
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (Tehran OR Mashhad) AND Politics = search for politics in Tehran or Mashhad
Example: (Iran NOT Iraq) AND "Middle East" AND "regional politics" = search for articles about Iran in middle eastern regional politics, excluding articles specifically about Iraq
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "Foreign relations"
Example: "motion picture"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Nuri Said" would exclude results for "Nuri Pasha al-Said"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Iran* covers Iran, Iranian, Iranians
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood,
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* will also yield Brittany, Britons, and Britches. Virginia* will bring up articles on the Didelphis virginiana (Virginia opossum). Iran* brings up Iranotherium and Iranduba