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Native American Research Tutorial

Author and Title Searches

You can also search the library catalog by author and title. If you know the name of an author who writes about Native American issues, for example, you can search the catalog to find books by that person.

1. Author Searches

Let's look for books by Vine Deloria. You only need to enter the last name in the search screen. If it is a common last name, you can enter the first name or initials. If you selected Author Browse, you will get a list of all of the Delorias in the catalog.

Results: Note that you get a list of names, plus the number of items by each person. Names are treated like subject headings in the library catalog. There is only one approved name. Variant spellings and name changes include a notation to "See Also" the approved name. This is called authority control.

To see a list of titles by Vine Deloria, click on the highlighted number.

List of titles by Vine Deloria.

Authors do not have to be personal names. You can also search for material by corporate authors, such as tribal governments.

Let's look for material authored, sponsored, or published by the Navajo Nation. Enter "navajo nation" in the search screen. Note that you do not have to use capital letters.

Once again we get an authority list. Note that there is a "See Also" button.

Clicking this we see that an older version of this corporate author is "Navajo Tribe." Both terms will need to be searched to get items from this author.

2. Title Searches

You can also search the catalog by the titles of materials. You might know the title of the book, or an instructor might give you a list of titles. You might find a title in a print bibliography. This also might help narrow a keyword search down to just words in the title.

Let's look for books on Navajo History. Then select Title Keyword.

Results: Note that the words can be found anywhere in the title.

Anther option for searching titles is Left Anchored Title. This searches titles beginning with the left (or beginning) of the title, omitting any articles (a, an, the, etc.):

When this search is performed, the results all contain "Navajo History" at the beginning of the title:

For more on additional features of the San Juan College Library Catalog, go to the next page.

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