The purpose of this guide is to help you locate and use those library resources most useful for research in this class. If you have specific questions about your research, the reference librarians will be glad to assist you. The on-line library catalog is the primary source for accessing the collections of the Bowdoin College Libraries. The catalog contains electronic bibliographic records for books, periodicals, videorecordings, CD ROMs, and sound recordings. For the government documents collection and special collections materials, specialized indexes may need to be consulted since the records for those collections are only partially entered into the library catalog.
Most research begins with a subject search.
This function is very powerful and flexible in an on-line catalog, but the best search results are still obtained by use of the standardized subject headings found in the Library of Congress Subject Headings books. Specific names, broad terminology, and jargon can also be entered as keywords with good results. The following reference books are useful for checking facts and statistics and for gaining an overview of the history and politics of an individual country. Indexes and Databases Academic Universe Library Gateway Academic Universe is a fulltext database of news and legal information. Time coverage for the various newspapers, journals, and newswire services varies from publication to publication, generally no earlier than 1980.