Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Subject Guide: Books

GILFind: GSU Library (includes all GSU campuses: Atlanta, Clarkson, Decatur, Dunwoody, Newton, and Alpharetta)

GIL Universal Catalog: Academic universities in the University System of Georgia (see list here). New: now included in GILFind search.

WorldCat: 10,000+ libraries worldwide

***Please note that we are currently unable to receive or circulate print books from our library or other libraries.***

Start with our catalog at GILFind.

If GSU's library doesn't have what you need, you have, don't give up. There are several options to get the book you want:

GILFind will also let you search across all of the University System of Georgia Libraries - Select "University System of Georgia" instead of "Georgia State University" when searching in GILFind. You can check out books in person from any other University System of Georgia library with your Panthercard. You can also place a GIL Express request (click for information on starting a GIL Express request) to have a book from another USG school (or from another GSU campus) be sent to a GSU campus. (Please note that you cannot borrow ebooks from other USG Libraries, or from any other university libraries).

Emory - you can also borrow materials at Emory with your Panther Card. For current information about Emory University Libraries' print borrowing availability, consult their library directly. 

ARCHE - you can also borrow books from several local private colleges. Click here for a list of ARCHE schools. You may want to contact the library in advance to get further information about borrowing privileges (what kind of ID is needed, how long you can check out a book for, and so on). For current information about an ARCHE school's print borrowing availability, contact that school's library directly. 

Fulton County Library System - GSU students & faculty may obtain library cards from the Fulton County Library System, then borrow materials. For current information about print checkouts from Fulton County Library branches, consult the Fulton County Library System site directly. 

Use Interlibrary Loan to request books you find in WorldCat (below)
(or any other library catalog):

Still stuck? Ask a librarian for help.

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.

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. 

You can search in GILFind (which now lets you search all of the University System of Georgia library holdings at once -- just select "University System of Georgia" instead of "Georgia State University" in Simple Search, or in the "Search Scope" dropdown in Advanced Search) or WorldCat—using subject terms.

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.

Using the "subject" search in the new Browse Search option can turn up more options than you'd think!

To get a broad range of categories/categories, try subject searches using these terms (among others!):

• Women
• Lesbians
• Sexual Orientation
• Gender
• Homosexual
• Queer
• Transgender
• Heterosexism​

Start by searching keywords for your topic.

Look at the records for some of the best results.

Incorporate relevant subject headings from those results into further searches.

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).

If you know that you need a specific book, in a pinch, you can also search in our databases for book reviews to get a general sense of the book's argument, even if you can't access the book itself.

• Our Book Reviews research guide gives information about general book reviews
• Subject databases (like Women's Studies International, LGBTQ+ Source, or other databases focusing on particular subject areas) will often have an option in their Advanced Search to limit your search to "Book Reviews" or "Reviews." Check under "Document Type" or "Publication Type" to find that option.

The Library of Congress Classification Outline gives an overview of what the different letters and letter combinations used in call numbers mean!

• Click on an individual letter to get the subcategories (i.e. H breaks down into subcategories like HB, HD, HQ, and so on).
• Click on a subcategory to get a more detailed outline of the subjects included in each subcategory (that's what the numbers following the letters mean!)

Most academic libraries (i.e. colleges and universities) use the Library of Congress Classification Outline, so once you've begun to recognize which letter/number combinations seem relevant to you, you can use that combination at any other college/university library. 

This book is a study of how the Library of Congress has classified homosexuality and related terms. Very interesting study on how subject terms evolve: