Islamic Studies Resources: Books

1. Start your search process by brainstorming a list of keywords that describe the main concepts of your topic or question.
2. Use these keywords for your initial searches.
3. Use the Subject Heading links in the Library Catalog to refine your search.

Note: You can use bibliographies to find books, too.  A selection of bibliographies is on the Articles tab of this guide.

Use the library catalog to find out what books Vanderbilt owns or provides access to.

Let's say you want to find material on Jews and Muslims in Morocco.  Begin by doing a search for jew* morocc* (islam* OR muslim*).

* The asterisks tell the catalog to look for plurals and other variants; the parentheses with OR tell the catalog to provide results with "Islam" and/or "Muslim" and/or variants.

Your search results will include both items focused on Jews and Muslims in Morocco (e.g., Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco) and items with only a chapter or two on the topic (e.g., Jews and Muslims in the Islamic World). 

NOTE:  if you're not finding much of anything, you may need to do a broader search -- e.g., to find items on Jews and Muslims in Africa.

The catalog records for each item will have subject headings, which can be used to generate searches for other potentially relevant materials.  Just click on the appropriate subject heading links and edit if necessary:

Now that you've found a book in Library Catalog, how do you find it on the shelf?  Use this guide.