Can't find what you're looking for at Wellesley?
Use WorldCat Discovery to search and request directly from libraries worldwide via Interlibrary Loan.
Questions? Interlibrary Loan Guide
SuperSearch can be a great place to start to find out what's out there on your topic. SuperSearch will find books, journal articles, films, news, and almost everything else the library has — from popular to scholarly sources. You can use the filters on the results screen to improve your results.
For searching with more focus and precision, try one of the databases recommended on this guide.
You can use the filters to focus your search. Scroll down to Source Types, and choose Show More to see all types. Choosing Books, eBooks, and Academic Journals will help you narrow in on scholarly sources. (Not all books will be scholarly, but many will be.)
The databases listed here are just a selection of what is available through Wellesley. See our Databases A-Z list and browse by Subject to find other databases relevant to your research.
These databases contain citations & full text for scholarly articles in a variety of fields.
The library catalog is another way to search for books, ebooks, and videos. Although SuperSearch includes the library catalog, searching the catalog separately can give you a smaller, more focused set of results. While SuperSearch will search inside many books, for example, the library catalog will just search information about each book (what is often called metadata). This can be very helpful for relevancy (since you'll only get results in which your search terms are important enough to be included in the metadata), but it means the specific terms you choose become more important. Try a variety of keywords, and use what you find to find more. You can also use the subject terms to browse related materials.
Try a keyword search. Once you find a book that's relevant to your topic, click on the title and look for Subjects in the record of that book to help you find "more like this."
Sample keyword search for
leads to linked subject terms and more books related to this topic, e.g.,
Use AND to combine terms in your search: hip hop AND politics
Use OR to expand results: gender OR femininity OR masculinity
Use * to find variant endings, or as a wild card: wom*n latin*
Use " " to search words as a phrase: "hip hop"
Quick Guide to Clapp Library Locations
Call # / Location | |
Books & Videos A-DZ Knapp Multimedia Ctr Computer Classroom |
First Floor |
Computing Help Desk |
Second Floor |
Books & Videos E-PM PLTC |
Third Floor |
Books & Videos PN-Z Archives Special Collections Book Arts Lab |
Fourth Floor |
Main Floor
Music Books
Music DVDs
Music Periodicals
MFD printer/copier/scanner
Request at desk
CDs
Equipment
Lower Floor
Music Scores and Parts
Sound Lab