Books provide comprehensive, broad coverage of a given topic, including background or historical information. Many, but not all, books in the library catalog are written by scholars and published by University presses and scholarly associations. These would be considered scholarly, academic, and authoritative sources.
If you're not finding results, try searching for similar terms.
You can use an asterisk * to truncate search terms
Example: search "herb*" as a keyword:
Searching for specific subjects only returns results where the majority of the text is about that subject. This can help bring back only truly relevant results, but subject terms are chosen from a set list of approved terms, which makes guessing what those terms might be hard. A good practice is to look at the subject terms used in other results that fit your research topic and reuse those, or pick and choose from those to create your search.
1. Start your SLU Libraries Catalog search with a title, author, subject, or keyword.
2. Modify your search as needed, adding, removing, and tweaking your search terms to find resources relevant to your topic.
Physical Books
3. When you find a print book, make note of its current status (checked out or available), library location, and call number. Pius Library location links are clickable and lead to a call number location guide.
4. Go to the appropriate location to retrieve your book and check it out at the library's circulation desk with your SLU ID.
1. Start your SLUth search with a title, author, subject, or keyword.
2. Modify your search as needed, adding, removing, and tweaking your search terms to find resources relevant to your topic.
3. When you find a book, make note of its current status (checked out or available), library location, and call number. Pius Library location links are clickable and lead to a call number location guide.
4. Go to the appropriate location to retrieve your book and check it out at the library's circulation desk with your SLU ID.
To find books in Missouri's academic libraries (and a few public libraries), search the MOBIUS Catalog.
To find books in U.S. libraries (and beyond), search WorldCat.
Materials in the library are arranged in Library of Congress call number order (which is basically subject order). History materials can be found in the D's (located on Lewis Annex Level 4), E's, and F's (located on the 2nd floor of Pius Library). Here is a list of more detailed subclasses.
| D HISTORY: GENERAL AND OLD WORLD | |
| D | World History |
| DA-DR | European History |
| DJK-DK | Eastern Europe, Russia & Poland |
| DS | Asia |
| DT | Africa |
| DU | Australia, New Zealand |
| E-F HISTORY: AMERICA | |
| E 11-143 | America |
| E 151- | United States History (includes African-American Studies at E 185) |
| F 1-975 | United States Local History (includes St. Louis at F 474 & Missouri at F 466) |
| F 1001- | Other Countries (includes Canada, & countries of Central & South America) |
