Communication: Subject Guide: Books

   to search names as a phrase | ex: "anderson cooper"

   as a wild card | ex: wom*n

AND between words to NARROW results | ex: media AND healthcare

OR between words to EXPAND results | ex: African American OR Black

Books in libraries are assigned one or more subject headings. These are standardized terms that ensure books on the same topic can be found even if the keywords are different, as with Istanbul and Constantinople.

Use GILFind (click "Catalog" on the library's homepage or just start here) to search in

• The Georgia State University Library catalog (includes all of the Perimeter campus libraries)
• The Georgia State University Law Library
• All University System of of Georgia libraries (select ""University System of Georgia" instead of "Georgia State University" in the , or in the "Search Scope" dropdown in Advanced Search) 

Use the Browse Search link in GILFind to search by subject terms. (You can also search by subject in Advanced Search). 

When you find a good book, look at its subject headings in the catalog record.

Follow these to list other items on that topic. Or, use the subject heading terms in a new keyword search.

Almost every college or university library in the US will use the Library of Congress Subject Headings. WorldCat also uses them.

Searching broad terms like these using "Browse Search" will bring up results for that term AND for more specific phrases beginning with that term

For example .

• Mass media --> books on mass media broadly defined

but also, following that heading, you'll see links for subcategories like: 

• Mass media Aesthetics
• Mass media Africa
• Mass media Africa, Sub-Saharan

and so on!

You can search for eBooks from all GSU library ebook databases in the GSU Library's GilFind catalog just as you would search for traditional print books. After you search, tweak your results to show only "full access online" and the "books" format to see only eBooks.

(Are you teaching? See a full description for embedding ebooks for course content).

Help! I've found an ebook in the library's catalog and I'm not sure how to download it!

Different providers (i.e. ProQuest, EBSCO, etc.) have different requirements. Check out our Ebooks research guide for information about how to read/download ebooks.

If you're not finding an ebook using the sources in the "Finding Electronic Books" box, you still have some options:

• Contact your Subject Librarian to see if it's possible to order an ebook. (Find your Subject Librarian by locating your school/department here).
• If you know that you only need a section of a book, you can place an Interlibrary Loan request for that section. You will need full citation information for the book and the page range that you are requesting. Start here to place an Interlibrary Loan request. (Don't know the page information? Check Google Books to see if you can see the book's table of contents. Amazon's "Look Inside" feature might also provide this information).