Locating Books and Call Numbers
Most books that deal with historical topics are shelved in the Central Library. The catalog shows the book call number and location.
Need help making sense of the Call # you found in Library Catalog? or where to find the book in the library?
Book Catalogs
- Library Search This link opens in a new window
Check out the Library Search which finds print and electronic items, including journal and newspaper articles, book chapters, books, reviews, legal documents, and much more. Note: Due to licensing restrictions, some content is only available to current students, faculty, and staff.
- HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized collections of some of the nation’s great research libraries, established in this repository to archive and share their digital content.
Google Books. Searches the full text of books and selected magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. Most titles are no longer in print or commercially available.
Center for Research Libraries (CRL). A consortium of North American libraries that acquire and preserve newspapers, journals, documents, archives, etc. CRL holdings can be borrowed for extended periods via Interlibrary Loan.
Materials Beyond Vanderbilt
WorldCat contains more than 125 million records describing items owned by U.S. libraries and libraries around the world.
These items include books, manuscripts, musical scores, films, newspapers, etc.
Use 
to locate Vanderbilt holdings or request from Interlibrary Loan.
Finding Primary Sources
- Go to Advanced Search in the online catalog
- Under Subject enter "sources or personal narratives or diaries" (without the quotes)
- Under Any Field enter terms related to your topic
- Find Subject Headings related to your topic that include words such as "sources, "personal narratives," or "diaries"
- Sample subject headings that are applied to primary sources (click on these in the cataloging record to find similar items):
- personal narratives, American
- Autobiography--African American authors
- Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin
