Introduction
This guide has been designed to provide information that will support research for your semester field project.This page focuses on general library resources and services.
Other tabs in this guide highlight more specialized resources for finding background information on the local feature that you have chosen for your final project.
For better access off campus to Cornell resources -- especially journal articles -- it is highly recommended that you install Passkey in your browser.
Finding Books in the Library Catalog
The Cornell Library Catalog includes the holdings of all Ithaca campus libraries. The catalog contains records for books, computer files, government documents, manuscripts and archives, maps, musical scores, periodicals, serials, sound recordings, and visual materials.
To access the catalog, click on the link under the search box on the main library website.
The "All Fields" search will retrieve matches for your search terms wherever they appear in the description of an item, but you may use the pulldown menu to limit to title, author, subject, publisher, or call number.
The Cornell University Library uses Library of Congress Subject Headings as the standard for subject searching. Limit your search to Subject to retrieve items that contain your terms as part of their LC heading.
If you find one book relevant to your subject, you can identify others by clicking on the subject heading in the record for that book.
Clicking on the subject heading link in any catalog record will retrieve additional books or other items related to that subject.
Selected Article Databases
- America: History & LifeAmerica: History and Life (AHL) is a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present and includes entries for periodicals dating back to 1954.
- Environment IndexThe Environment Index provides researchers with abstracts and indexing for over 1,000 titles covering environmental policy and studies.
- Hathi Trust Digital LibraryAs a digital repository for the nation's great research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the immense collections of partner institutions. A tremendous resource for original documents and pamphlets and other digitized items previously only available on site at universities.
- JSTORJSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several hundred scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, music, ecology and botany, business, and other fields.
- Web of ScienceA citation database that allows you to search for journal articles, conference proceedings and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Need Additional Help?
Cornell librarians are available to help you via email or through a Zoom research consultation.
The Mann Library reference email is mann-ref@cornell.edu
To book a research consultation, complete the form on the Research Services page of the Mann Library website.