Countries: Country Resources in InfoKat Discovery

InfoKat Discovery lists books and other material that focus on specific countries and groups of countries and also provides access to books that focus on given research topics with a country or regional focus.  Searching for your country using the Browse Source by Subject on the InfoKat Discovery Browse page will give you access to a clickable list of headings and sub-headings, in alphabetical order, in which the name of your country appears, with the number of specific headings indicated.

For example, the initial entries for Ireland look like this:

As you can see, this list will be quite long, given the various subdivisions that are possible.

If you are in a library, you can look in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (Young Reference Collection, Government Documents LC 26.7 [ask for it at the Reference Desk, north wing, 2nd floor]) to find useful subject subdivisions for countries; beginning on p. SD-i in volume 1, you can see a list of terms that you can use to search for information about your country -- a list of some of the most useful appear in the box to the right side of the screen. You can find specific subheadings for your country under the country itself, as well. You can also look up in the LCSH the subject heading you would like to see as the main heading with your country as a subheading. Once you have terms that will find the kind of books you need, you can do a more specific search on the InfoKat Discovery Browse page, entering your your terms as follows:

 

Here are the results of selecting the first item in the above list, Ireland - Description and travel. Note that you can sort the results in various ways; for example, to see the most current material first.

    Be aware that subject headings for books tend to be fairly general, so to look for more specific information, you can use the table of contents and index of each book that looks of interest and/or search for journal articles in appropriate subject databases (see the Country-Specific Information in Research Dbs. tab above).

Using the InfoKat Discovery Advanced Search or the InfoKat Discovery Browse page, search for your country, city, continent or region in conjunction with the topical term that best suits your research interest. You can look in LCSH under your country to find focused subject subdivisions that apply to that country specifically or use an appropriate Free-Floating Subdivision (pp. SD-i ff). Here are some terms that are often useful when doing country-specific research:

• Antiquities

• Biography

• Description and Travel (often used for specific countries instead of the subdivision 'geography')

• Economic Conditions

• Economic Policy

• Emigration and immigration

• Foreign Economic Relations (use with your country and one other to find books on their interactions)

• Foreign Public Opinion (use with your country and one other to find books on their interactions)

• Foreign Relations (use with your country and one other to find books on their interactions) [See also Relations]
   
• Geography (includes a number of specialized phrases, e.g., Human geography, Historical geography, etc.)

• Guidebooks

• History (can be divided further by date and/or topic--see specific country entry to find applicable dates and terms)

• Intellectual Life

• Maps

• Politics and Government

• Popular Culture

• Relations (use with your country and one other to find books on their interactions) [See also Foreign Relations]

• Social Conditions

• Social Life and Customs

To focus on the people of a country, consider the group term (e.g., Irish).

Still not finding what you want? Contact a librarian for assistance; see the Ask Us link below.

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