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PS 231: INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Course Instructor: Clifford Griffin
Librarian: Matt Sumner

Finding Books (and Journal Titles) Using the Library's Online Catalog

Use the library's on-line catalog to locate books in our collection. You may also use it to check for holdings at UNC-CH, Duke, and NC Central. Workstations in the D. H. Hill Library are located on the first floor, East Wing (Learning Commons), West Wing (Reading Room); the ground floor Reading Room; the north end of the second floor tower; and the southwest corner of the fifth and sixth floor stacks. The book catalog is available from any computer on the Internet.

You can search for books by author, title, subject, keyword, and by a variety of alpha-numeric control numbers.

"Force should be a means to an end, not an end in itself."
Thomas R. Mockaitis, Peace Operations and Intrastate Conflict: The Sword Or the Olive Branch? (1999, p. 133)

Trick #1. Start with this book's title, search it in the library's catalog, determine what subject headings were given it, then look to see what other books have been published with the same subjects. You'll find the subject, International Police, that's not at all obvious.

Trick #2. Can we find other subject headings using the keyword search feature? Try searching for "ends and means" (and put those words in quotes). That gives you quite a number of records. The search, "force ends means", does a somewhat better job. Strategy, national interests, and means to an end looks interesting, and leads you to the subject, Ends and Means. Next you can focus the set by looking at the books in political science, call number J, or law, K.

Trick #3. Experiment with alternative keywords. Try "use of force", for example.

Trick #4. Think of specific places where force has been applied, and search for books about those situations: Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Germany (World War I and II), etc. You can start with keyword searches, and from the identify subject headings. Possible subjects include Iraq War, 2003- ; Prisoners of war--Cuba--Guantanamo Bay Naval Base ; Afghanistan - History - 2001- ; Yugoslav War, 1991-1995

Trick #5. Take your search to a bigger catalog. Try searching TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Network) or WorldCat. There you'll come across the subject, War--Moral and ethical aspects.

If you want to refer to what Machiavelli had to say about means and ends, you'll find the text of The Prince online. Chapter XVIII, for example, contains advice to reflect on.

Journal titles: Records of the journal titles the library holds are contained in the library's catalog. The catalog also shows which years are available in the building in hard-copy. A periodical title's catalog record provides a link to an electronic copy of the title, if we have access to it in that format.

The library's catalog does not contain references to the articles within journals. It only records the titles of journals. You must use databases to search the contents of journals. In some cases, you can find full-text of a journal's contents using these databases. But that is not always possible. When full-text electronic access is not available, search the library's catalog under the name of the journal you want, obtain its call number, and then get the volume from the bookstack.

While this is a large library, it does not have all the books and journals you may want to use in your studies. The Interlibrary and Document Delivery Services (ILL/DDS) Office facilitates access to materials not available in the NCSU Libraries. Requests for material in other Triangle libraries can usually be filled in three to four days; items that must be obtained from a greater distance may take several weeks to arrive.

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