Introduction
The Hesburgh library houses many valuable resources for your research and study of film history topics. This guide is intended to demonstrate the steps in conducting your research.
Beginning your research:
As you decide on your topic you want to explore the various angles and develop a strategy for locating the information. What aspect do you want to focus on? What is the most important element of the topic? By answering these, and other pertinent, questions you can develop several “keywords” with which to begin your search. For example, when you are interested in a particular director their name can be used as a “keyword.” If you are researching a particular film the title would then become your “keyword.” Remember to try and start more broadly with your search so that you can narrow and refine the topic as you achieve results.
You might consider creating a list of viable keywords to begin your search as a way of tracking the process. For example, a search on Alfred Hitchcock:
Name: Alfred Hitchcock
Films: Psycho, The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, etc.
Dates: 1899-1980
Other names: Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, Sir Alfred Hitchcock
Roles: Director, Producer, Actor, Writer, etc.
Once you have developed a list of keywords you can follow these steps:
- Search the ND Catalog for books and/or films
- Look for articles pertaining to your topic
- Search for reviews, when applicable, on your topic
- Search other resources for your topic.
Searching
One Search:
This is the catalog that shows up when you first log on to the Hesburgh library's home page and allows you to search books and articles together. This catalog functions much like a Google search when you input your term. For instance, if you want to find a film such as Walt Disney's Chicken Little you can input that in the search box on the home page and hit enter.
Things to remember when you enter your search terms:
- use AND, OR, NOT when you want to search with Boolean terms i.e. Chicken AND little ; Chicken OR little ; Chicken NOT little . Otherwise the search engine will assume the lower case version is part of your search stream.
- You can toggle back and forth between the Advanced Search and the Basic Search with a click of the mouse and not lose your search results below.
Notice that when the search results arrive the video does come back witin the first few items but that there is an indiciation in blue that there are "Two versions of this item." If you click on that text it will bring up just those two versions and you can examine the "Details" tab to see which item you actually want.
In One Search there are several things you want to pay attention to:
- On the Left hand side there are facets that can help you limit your search. i.e. by format, or library, resource type, language, etc.
- The versions always appear in a bold, light blue color.
- Locations--this will show you where multiple items are housed, i.e. one at ND, one at St. Mary's, one in the Music and Media Unit, etc.
- Recall/Request--this link will only show up if an item is unavailable so that you can either recall it from another patron or request it via the Interlibrary Loan form.
- Full Record--this will give you the information about the item. In the case of media it will tell you if it is, for example, a regular DVD or a Blu-Ray.
- Reviews & Tags--if you are so inclined you can write things about the items here.
- All limits can be removed by clicking the "X" next to them.
- You can control how results are sorted. Your options are relevance, date-newest, author, and title.
You may decide that it is easier to just search the ND catalog. If that is the case you will want to click the tab labeled "ND Catalog." This will take you out of the One Search feature and you will not be searching books and articles together any longer.
Catalog Classic:
The ND catalog provides access to millions of different types of items owned by the Hesburgh Libraries. It includes books, periodicals (journals and magazines), maps, CD/DVDs, electronic databases, ebooks, and more. It does NOT include articles—for those you should visit (Find Articles).
There are times when searching for films when this catalog is still the easier one to search. Before you give up entirely and say you can't find an item try this catalog too.
Basic searching:
Keyword is the easiest and most flexible way to search the library catalog. It allows for a broad search of the libraries holdings in all fields of the catalog record: Title, Author, Publisher, etc.
Word searching combines words using connectors such as AND, OR, and AND NOT. Use the * for wild card searches.
Keyword | Alfred Hitchcock | AND Psycho
Keyword | Alfred Hitchcock | AND television
To search for films:
While in the ND catalog it is possible to limit your search by type. From the main catalog page select “Advanced Search” in the upper left hand corner. On the “Advanced Search” page you will see a section entitled “Multi-field Keyword Search” and within this area are options to “Limit” your search. For films you would simply select the drop down choice for “Visual (Films and Videos)” from the “All Formats” tab.
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