HI 207: Chinese Civilization and Society

Begin by searching our catalog.

Keyword searches are very broad and will find every item that mentions the words you searched for. This can be great if you want to browse, but there are other ways to search that can help you narrow down your topic.

Subject headings are the specific way that libraries like to organize works on the same subject, so that way when you find one item, you can easily find all the others with that same subject. Here are some examples you can try searching under subject in the catalog:

• China -- History.
• China -- Civilization.
• China -- History -- Qing dynasty, 1644-1912.
• China -- History -- Song dynasty, 960-1279.
• Women -- China -- History.
• Art, Chinese
• Taoism
• China -- Economic conditions -- To 1644.
• Animals -- China -- History.
• Silk Road
• Medicine, Chinese -- History.
• China -- History -- Philosophy.

• Keep your search terms very general
• Do your search different ways for different results
• Explore the additional subject terms inside the record of each item you look at.

Let's say that you want to look for ebooks. The easiest way to do that is to use the URSearch found on the library's homepage. This is what it looks like: 

Click SEARCH and you will get this page.

In the column on the left, find where it says Source Types. Click Show More and select eBooks. Then you will only see ebooks in your search!