Skip to Main Content
“Brandeis

South Asian Studies

Search for Books in a Specific Language

Use the Language option to the left of your catalog or WorldCat search results to limit to sources in a specific language, such as Hindi or Bengali.

HathiTrust is a digital repository for the nation’s great research libraries. It contains a wealth of scanned out-of-copyright materials, including many important texts for musical research. Use the Advanced Search to limit your search to books in a specific language.

Finding Books on Your Research Topic

Try exploring the Library Catalog for books related to your topic. The Library Catalog tab in OneSearch is the main way to located books, as well as journals and videos in the library collections. If you have already identified the book(s) you need through other research aids, you can search by Title or by Author. If you are trying to identify books that will be useful for your research topic, you can search Keyword or Subject. 

If Brandeis does not have the book you need, try looking for books from other libraries:

OnlineBrandeis WorldCat is a library catalog that contains millions of records for books and other materials held in libraries worldwide. Search for your item and then use the "Request Item from Interlibrary Loan" button or link on the item page to place your request. 

In-person: Brandeis is a member of the Boston Library Consortium. You can borrow books in-person from any of the member libraries in New England with a BLC card. Get a BLC card at the Information & Borrowing desk in Goldfarb Library.

More Information about Interlibrary Loan

Reference Books

Reference sources, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, will be useful for refining your topic and coming up with keywords. Some of entries will contain bibliographies which you can use to locate key books and articles on your topic.

Search Tip

Search tip: Search for books by either Keywords or Subject Headings. Start with a Keyword search and identify some relevant books. Then look at the subject headings for those books. You can follow the subject heading links in the catalog to find similar books, or you can use the terms in the subject headings to identify other keywords to try.

Example Subject Headings: 

India -- History
Karachi (Pakistan) -- Fiction
South Asia -- History
South Asia -- Politics and government
Geopolitics -- Pakistan
Pakistan -- History
Pakistan -- Politics and government
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 -- Political and social views

Example Titles: