Ethnic Studies Tools & Resources

• Goals for this guide
• Tools to use for your research
• Identifying appropriate tools for your topics
• Getting Started
• Searching the Book Catalogs by Subject
• Finding articles by searching databases
• Finding Useful Resources on the Internet
• Maybe you didn't know...
• Contact

Goals for this guide

• Learn about reference tools that can lead you to useful publications and primary sources.
• Become familiar with catalogs, indexes and databases used for identifying articles, books, and other scholarly works.

Tools to use for your research

Identifying appropriate tools for your topic

The interdisciplinary nature of ethnic studies means that materials relevant to your research can be located in many different parts of the library, depending on how the book was classified (how the call number was assigned). You will save yourself a lot of time and be a more effective researcher if you learn to use your library resources, such as online catalogs, databases, paper indexes, and bibliographies. As a general rule, remember this:

To identify books, use the online catalogs: ROGER and MELVYL.

• The ROGER catalog contains records for everything that the UCSD Libraries own: books, videos, newspapers, journals (but not individual articles). Searchable by keywords, subjects (Library of Congress Subject Headings), title, title words, and author.
• The MELVYL catalog is much bigger than ROGER, containing records for materials owned by all the UC libraries. Like ROGER, it is searchable by subject, author, keyword and title, AND it has more features for very specific searches. Use the "Request" button in Melvyl to have a book from another campus sent to UCSD for you.

To identify articles: Use article databases, print indexes, and bibliographies.

Getting Started

Go to the Social Sciences & Humanities Library web site

It's your starting point to reach catalogs, indexes, databases, and online reference sources.

Look at the resources available in Sage and choose an ethnic group or "North American Ethnicity and Cultures".

Searching the book catalogs for your subject

To use the catalogs effectively, you'll want to know that a controlled vocabulary called the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) is used to describe all library materials in the catalogs.

EXAMPLE: A subject search for Chicanas in ROGER will retrieve nothing because the official subject heading used by the Library of Congress is Mexican American women. ROGER doesn't always guide you to the correct subject heading. Try whiteness or hookers or WWII.

Ways to find appropriate subject headings:

Check the LCSH volumes-Library of Congress Subject Headings (the big red books) located on shelves next to the reference desk.

Do a keyword search for any word on your topic, and see what subjects have been assigned to it. Then use those subjects to find similar items.

EXAMPLE: A keyword search for the word whiteness retrieves a record for the book The politics of whiteness: race, workers, and culture in the modern South. However, a subject search for the word whiteness won't bring up that title because whiteness is not an official subject heading.

Subject Headings for General Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity:

Acculuration
Americanization
Assimilation (Sociology)
Cultural Assimilation
Emigration and Immigration
Ethnic Identity
Ethnic Relations
Ethnicity - United States
Immigrants, cultural assimilation
Immigration
Minorities - United States
Multiculturalism
Pluralism (Social Sciences)
Race awareness
Race discrimination
Race identity
Race relations - (geographic entity)
Racism - United States
United States - Ethnic Relations
United States - Race Relations

Examples of Specific Ethnic Group Subjects:

African Americans (some records still use outdated term Afro Americans)
Chinese Americans - Ethnic Identity
Hispanic American(s)
Indians of North America
Jews - United States - Identity
Mexican American Youth
Navajo Indians
Samoan Americans

Examples of Subjects for Biracial and Multiracial Identity:

African Americans - Race Identity
Amerasians
Human Skin Color
Indians of North America Mixed
Interracial Marriage
Miscegenation
Mixed Descent
Racially Mixed Children
Racially Mixed People

Finding articles by searching databases

Two types:

Bibliographic Databases

Lead you to citations for articles, books, and chapters within books. May also contain abstracts. Many of the databases we subscribe to are not linked to our library collections, so your next step will be to check ROGER or MELVYL to see which library owns the book or journal you want.

Full-text Databases

Provide you with the complete text of a newspaper or journal article. LexisNexis Academic is an example of a collection of more than 5,000 full-text publications, covering news (newspapers, broadcast transcripts, wire services -- both in the U.S. and international), business (company information, magazines, trade publications and newsletters), and law (law journals and newsletters, state and federal appeals court decisions).

Click here for list of suggested databases for Ethnic Studies.

Finding useful resources on the Internet

Try the Sage link from any of the UCSD Libraries web pages

Sage is a web portal that is customized to the needs of UCSD students. Librarians and subject specialists have input records for web resources, databases, electronic journals, and some books to help you find the resources you need in a way that's more selective than a regular web search engine, such as Google or Alta Vista.

Maybe you didn't know...

About the Online Archive of California, a collection of finding aids and digitized manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, etc. documenting the history, culture, and people of California.

About the Mandeville Special Collections Library where you can use real (not digitized!) primary sources such as letters, photographs, manuscripts, rare books, and sound recordings.

About the Social Sciences Data Collection which can provide you with statistical data to support your thesis. See their web site at

About the library's services:

Contact Information

Alanna Aiko Moore
Sociology, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies Librarian
Social Sciences and Humanities Library
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr #0175R
La Jolla, CA 92093
858-822-5918
aamoore@ucsd.edu