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INTL 271 - Community Engaged Learning (Schiavone Camacho Spring 2022)

Searching in the catalog

Searching the library catalog is one of the best ways to find solid academic books, ebooks and journal articles about your topic. However it isn't always easy to find what you are looking for on the first try. Here are some tips and tricks that might help you out.

1. Find the subject heading that best fits your topic.

Searching for "9/11" won't get you a whole lot of good results. However searching for su:September 11 Terrorist Attacks (2001) will get you much better ones. To find the subject term that best fits your topic, experiment with different keywords and once you find one item that appears to be close to your topic, click on it and open up Description. There you will see the subject headings associated with that item. Click on one that looks helpful and it will take you to a search of just items connected to that specific topic.

2. Use interlibrary loan to expand your search

Just because our library doesn't have immediate access to a book or article you are interested in, doesn't mean you can't get it. If you find a book or article that interests you, use the Request Item button to ask for us to get you a copy.

Possible Secondary Sources

Researching at the Mennonite Historical Library

The MHL can be a great place to find interesting primary and secondary resources. Their collection encompasses everything by or about Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites). So if you are looking for information on a local business, home or person who has those connections, the MHL might have resources. They are open 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday, however if you would like assistance while researching, you will want to contact Joe Springer in advance to set up an appointment.

Finding History Senior Seminar Papers

These are papers written by senior history majors as a part of their final degree requirements. They are not available digitally, but are located in the Paper files at the MHL.

To find the papers, open up the MHL catalog, or select the MHL tab at the top of the Everything search box.

Search for "History Senior Seminar"

If you want to see most recent, use the Sort by Date (newest first)

You can also add search terms, avoid adding Goshen, try Elkhart or something more specific.

To read the papers, make a note of the author's name and visit the MHL to find their file. Most papers can be copied or scanned for easier repeated access.