Library Search is a great starting place for your research. It's the main search field in the middle of the Library homepage. You can use this to search The Claremont Colleges Library collections, other campus collections and libraries worldwide.
Use Library Search to find print books, eBooks, articles, newspaper resources, tangible media (CDs/DVDs), streaming media, objects available in tech lending, special collections holdings and more!
If an item shows as "Held by Other Libraries" you may request the item through resource sharing by clicking on the "Get This Item" button.
Databases can help you find primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Most people use databases to find scholarly articles in their field, but there are also archival, film, newspaper and image databases that may be helpful for finding sources.
Some databases are subject-specific, meaning that they specialize in a subject area. An example of this is PubMed, which specialized in scholarly medical literature. Some databases are multidisciplinary, which means that it has materials from a wide-variety of topics, such as Academic Search Premier.
When selecting a database, you want to consider:
To browse the databases in your field of study, click on the button, then select the All Subjects dropdown and choose your subject area.
When conducting academic research for your assignments, it is often stressed that you need to use articles from a scholarly journal. Scholarly journals are also known as 'academic journals' or 'peer-reviewed journals'.
Characteristics of scholarly journals include:
The Claremont Colleges Library uses Browzine to provide access to journals. You can search Browzine by title or ISSN and browse by subject areas. If you are on a mobile device, you may be prompted to download the free app through the App Store or Google Play. If you create a free Browzine account, you can collect journals that you access regularly and them to a "bookshelf."
To get started, go to the Library journals page and either search for the title or ISSN you wish to access or, browse by subject area. You can sort the journals found in either alphabetical order (A-Z) or by Scimago ranking (journal rank) to list core journals first.
Reference Materials hold a wealth of information and are typically most useful for finding broad information on your topic. You may find a wide variety of information in reference materials such as historical backgrounds on a topic, governmental information, statistical information, definitions and more! Examples of reference materials include: encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, atlases, maps and even directories.
Some reference materials may be multidisciplinary, covering multiple topics, such as Gale Virtual Reference Library while others may be subject-specific such as Birds of the World, which contains comprehensive life histories for all bird species and families including taxonomic information.
When selecting reference materials, you want to consider:
To browse all reference materials, click the button below, then choose Reference Sources from the All Formats drop-down.
Do you want to know what reference materials are available in your subject area? Select your subject from the All Subjects drop-down, then select Reference Sources from All Formats. This will apply a two-layered sort. Example: Biology (All Subjects) + Reference Sources (All Formats)
Use Library Search to explore The Claremont Colleges Library’s most distinctive and unique resources - rare books, literary and historical manuscripts, maps, photographs, college archives, and more for study and research.
Please note that not all items in the special collections are digitized and you may need to make an appointment to access items in person.
When we select materials for our academic research assignments, we often select materials from similar scholarly voices having a conversation through restricted subscription (paid only) databases. If we continually select materials from the same types of subscription databases, we may end up leaving out underrepresented scholarly voices which may be more accessible through Open Access resources.
Therefore, when choosing materials for our research, it's important that we avoid publication bias by selecting sources from a wide variety of scholarly voices who are attempting to answer the same scholarly question. We can do this by using a combination of scholarly articles, scholarly books, newspaper resources, data sets from both subscription databases, open access sources and grey literature (government reports, corporate policy reports, etc).
To get started exploring OA Resources, click on the button below, then select Open Access from the All Formats drop-down list.
Do you want to know what Open Access materials are available in your subject area? Select your subject from the All Subjects drop-down, then select Open Access from All Formats. This will apply a two-layered sort. Example: Biology (All Subjects) + Open Access (All Formats)
The terms “data” and “statistics” may often be used interchangeably, but in the worlds of research and academia it is important to understand the difference.
To get started on finding data-related resources, click on the button, then select the Data & Statistics from the All Formats dropdown menu.
