Books often provide an overview of a topic and allow you to gain knowledge about the bigger picture before moving on to the more specific information that you'll find in journal articles.
When you don't have a particular title in mind, try searching for some keywords about your research topic. Once you've found some relevant books, look at the subject headings for those books. You can use these subject headings to find similar books.
Library books at Brandeis are arranged by Library of Congress call number.
The Library of Congress call number system arranges items by subject. This means that you will be able to find books on similiar topics next to one another on the shelf. One call number can serve as the starting point to browse the shelves for more material.
More information about reading Library of Congress call numbers
If Brandeis does not a book on your topic, or a specific book you're looking for, you can use the option to "include items you can request from other libraries" or use the dropdown next to the search bar and select "Brandeis and more" to search for books from other libraries and then request these books through Interlibrary Loan.
When searching for a specific book, make sure to put the title inside quotation marks so that the search uses an exact title match.
For detailed instructions on requesting books from other libraries, visit our Interlibrary Loan page.
