College Libraries: ARTH McNamara Classes: Finding Books

The Task

You need to locate in either BearCat or WorldCat:
- An encyclopedia entry for your artist from the print copies in the Crumb Library
- 3 monographs on the artist and their works (do NOT include biographies)
- 2 histories on the timeframe or art styles / movements
- 2 scholarly books on the art of the country the artist is from or where they worked
- 1 exhibition catalog of the artists work
You must cite all items in Turabian format
For each item, you must indicate
- The resource you used (e.g. BearCat, WorldCat, Art Index)
- If Bearcat, include the location and call number
- If WorldCat, indicate ILL.
Dr. McNamara has an example bibliography if you need an example of Turabian format.

Library Catalogs are databases full of records of information about what is on a libraries shelves

BearCat - SUNY Potsdam's catalog, covering Crumb and Crane Libraries. This interface is also our uber database search tool.
WorldCat - a combined catalog of thousands of libraries. Used for interlibrary loan
Illiad - the software used to manage Interlibrary Loan requests. You must create an account to use Illiad.

Search tips:

Use the correct mechanics of searching:
- AND – connects different ideas
- ( OR ) - for lists of synonymous or related terms
- Stem* - finds all word endings of a given stem (stem need not be a complete word
- “ “ - keeps phrases of multiple words together
Discover and then search with the correct SUBJECT vocabulary
Dates are tricky. Words expressing time periods are more accessible for student searching than actual year ranges

Remember, you are NOT searching the full text of the books, but merely a compressed record of information about the book.

3 books on the artist and his/her works. No biographies!

2 histories on the timeframe or art styles / movements

search with words first, e.g. renaissance, world war II, impressionism, NOT DATES
if you need to refine, add additional broad topics, not your artist (so add art or painting instead of Rembrandt)

2 scholarly books on the art of the country the artist is from or where they worked

Use the correct name of the country as a SUBJECT search term (so Netherlands, not Holland or Dutch)
Add a keyword if necessary for the time period of your artist

1 exhibition catalog of the artists work

NOTE: For this assignment, it is important to pay attention to the PUBLISHER.