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RUSS 4431/5431 Dostoyevsky: Find Books

Search for Books in the Libraries' Online Catalog

Tips for Keyword Searching

  • Searching with "and" narrows your search, retrieving fewer, yet more specific, results. Searching for "gender" will retrieve a large number of less relevant results than searching for: gender AND Russia AND "woman question."
  • Using the asterisks (*) at the end of the root word will retrieve results where that word has different endings. For example, searching Tolst* will retrieve results with Tolstoy and Tolstoi. 
  • Think of synonyms, related terms, and alternate spellings! For example, use "Russian literature" or "Russian prose" when searching for information.

  • Once you find a book that interests you, make sure you write down the whole call number and note if the book is available and where it is!

  • Find relevant books in the stacks and look around that book to see what else you can find. Books with similar subjects and call numbers will be near each other on the shelves.

Combine Search Words

  • AND -- link words by using AND to search for all keywords in the same resource
  • OR -- link words by using OR to search for one keyword or another, great way to search for synonyms
  • NOT -- to eliminate results with a certain keyword
  • "Quotations" -- add quotations to a group of two or more words to search for the exact phrase

Subject Searching

In library catalogs and databases, items are assigned subject headings (or descriptors) to describe the content of the item. Using subject search ensures that all items about the same topic can all be accessed with one search term. Search results are usually very relevant to the topic.

However, subject headings are a set of pre-defined terms or phrases, known as controlled vocabulary. You must know the exact controlled vocabulary term or phrase when searching.

Find the subject heading:

  • locate an item in the catalog or database, and click on its subject heading to view more
  • look to see if your catalog or database has a thesaurus that you can browse to find the subject heading that best match your topic

Interlibrary Loan Services

Where are the Russian books?

The Slavic Languages and Literature Collection is located on Level 3B in Norlin Library Stacks and at PASCAL Offsite storage facility.

Books relating to Russian Literature are in the call number range: PG 2900 - PG 3698 (Level 3B in Norlin Stacks)

Books relating to Russian Philology and Language are in the call number range: PG 2001 - PG 2826 (Level 3B in Norlin Stacks)