LIT 101: Cultures and Canons: Find Books

Find additional anthologies by searching for "literary collections".

Use the search box on the Gitenstein Library homepage to find books about canons and related literary concepts. Improve your results by taking just a few minutes to understand Library of Congress Subject Headings or LCSH for short.

Subject headings are tags assigned by cataloging librarians to the records (or descriptions) of library books and other resources. LCSH communicate both what a source is (e.g., an encyclopedia, periodical, or primary source), and what it is about (i.e., its subject). Conceptually, LCSH function similarly to Twitter and Instagram hashtags. But unlike those tags, LCSH are consistently applied and highly precise. The tags are pre-determined, that is cataloging librarians never make up a tag on the fly but rather draw from a list of terms already approved and in use by other librarians. Examples:

1. [KEYWORD IN SUBJECT] "literary collections" AND (hispan* OR latin* OR mexic*) [finds primary sources]
2. [KEYWORD IN SUBJECT] literature AND "criticism and interpretation" AND (black* OR Africa*)
3. [KEYWORD IN SUBJECT] literature AND "history and criticism" AND native*
4. [SUBJECT BROWSE] African Americans in literature
5. [SUBJECT BROWSE] American literature — Minority authors
6. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Blacks in literature
7. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Canon (Literature)
8. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Cultural pluralism in literature
9. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Ethnic groups in literature
10. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Ethnicity in literature
11. [SUBJECT BROWSE] Gays in literature
12. [SUBJECT EXACT] Gender Identify in literature
13. [SUBJECT EXACT] Group Identify in literature
14. [SUBJECT EXACT] Indians in literature
15. [SUBJECT EXACT] Minorities in literature
16. [SUBJECT EXACT] Race in literature
17. [SUBJECT EXACT] Sexual minorities in literature
18. [SUBJECT EXACT] White people in literature
19. [SUBJECT EXACT] Whites in literature
20. [SUBJECT EXACT] Whites — United States

Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to request books and book chapters not held by our library. Chapters typically arrive within hours. Physical books take days.

WorldCat is a "union catalog" of millions of records for books held by thousands of libraries. Search WorldCat to find more books about your topic. Identify e-books available to read or borrow immediately by conducting an Advanced search. Look for the Library Code box toward the bottom of the page. Enter one of the following library codes:

• INARC (e-books from Internet Archive)
• HATHI (e-books from HathiTrust)
• NJT (books/e-books from our Gitenstein Library)
• OAPEN (open access e-books)