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University of Texas University of Texas Libraries

AEP

AEP Beginner guide

Find Sources

Find Sources

To find a specific book or books on a particular topic, start with UT library catalog. The catalog will tell you which books we own, and will give you the location, call number and book status you need to find the book on the shelf.

catalog record

Find books beyond UT Libraries

Use specialized search tools such as:

  • WorldCat searches books from libraries all over world.
  • Google Books searches the full text of millions books.
  • If you find a book that the libraries do not own, you can request a copy or individual chapter via Interlibrary Services.

How can I use books in my research?

  • Get broader coverage of a topic than articles do and more in-depth coverage
  • Learn more about the relationship between different concepts and topics

  • When the Libraries purchases books, we usually get materials recommended by scholars or faculty members in the subject.

  • To find historical perspective

Tip: It can take over a year for many academic books to be published. Use articles to find information on a very current topic.

You can use Search on the Library homepage to search across various book and article databases simultaneously. Many article databases, however, aren’t included in that search tool. To find the best resources for your topic, you might want to go directly to a specific database.

Find the best database(s) for your research topic:

  • General, multidiscipinary databases are a good place to start since they include both popular and scholarly journal titles covering numerous disciplines. Simply choose one of those databases and type in your keywords to begin to find articles. 

  • Academic Search Complete: multi-disciplinary database of scholarly and general interest journals, books, and reports.
  • Gale eBooks A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. 
  • Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints: provides full text access to differing points of view on current social issues.
  • NexisUni: provides a wide variety of authoritative sources (usually with full text content), including, but not limited to full text of more than 350 newspapers from the U.S. and around the world.
  • Browse for databases by subject (such as EconomicsElectrical Engineering, or Art History) if you want to dig deeper into resources covering a specific discipline. If you aren’t sure what subject to choose, look for the academic department that your class is listed under. Once you’ve chosen a subject, search for your topic in one or two of the recommended databases that are listed on the right side of the subject page.

  • Browse for databases by type if you want to find other kinds of formats, such as encyclopedias, newspapers, government information sources, statistics, maps, images and more.

If you have an article citation:

  • The Citation Linker will look across various databases to find whether or not we have access to the article online or in a journal on the library shelves. You need a journal title and publication date to use the Citation linker. 

If you are looking for articles by a particular author:

  • google scholar: provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources.

The New York Times

The New York Times (NYT) offers comprehensive coverage of national and international news. UT students have unlimited free access to NYT through at nyt.com. This includes Cooking, Games, and the Athletic. Your access to NYT is directly through the site and the app, NOT through our databases.

Please follow the instruction on this guide to set up your account.

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