Skip to Main Content

The Highway of Tears : Finding Books

A guide to resources and research help related to the Highway of Tears

Finding Books

The Classic Catalogue's default search setting is set to keyword. 

Begin by identifying the keywords in the question or the subject you wish to find materials for. Here is an example: 

Question:

  • I am looking for books on violence against First Nations women. How do I find them?

Answer: 

Begin by identifying the important words in the question. 

  • I am looking for books relating to violence and First Nations and women. 

Go to the Classic Catalogue to perform the keyword search. Remember to think about different terms (synonyms), which may prove to be more effective during the research process. For instance, First Nations may be changed to Aboriginal, Indigenous, Indians of North America, or Native Americans. 

Searching: violence AND First Nations AND women retrieves 20 results. You can broaden or narrow results retrieved by adding other terms of interest into the mix. Use Boolean Operators AND and OR to broaden or narrow your search. 

Examples: 

(First Nations OR Aboriginal OR Indigenous OR Indians of North America OR Native Americans) AND women AND violence

Searching by subject heading ensures that you are able to pull up all of the materials associated with a given subject. Each and every book in the library has a predetermined subject heading assigned to them. These subject headings indicate the different subjects or topics being dealt with in a particular book. Each of the subject headings found in the catalogue is linked to other materials dealing with the same subject matter.  

Do a Subject Heading search and see what you can find:

Begin by going to the Classic Catalogue and selecting subject in the drop-down menu. Try searching any or all of the following subject headings to see the various materials we have. 

  1. Indian women -- Crimes against -- Canada.
  2. Native women -- Crimes against -- Canada. 
  3. Indigenous women -- Crimes against -- Canada.

Searching by a book's call number is one of the most efficient ways to search for materials! Searching this way allows you to go directly to a book's bibliographic record, while gaining the ability to search the shelves virtually from the comfort of your own desk or home! 

Every item in the library has been assigned a call number.These numbers tell us the subject area of the material, the location of the item in the library, and the physical order of the books on the shelf. It is these numbers that allow you to see all of the titles of the books located next to the searched item on the shelf. 

Give it a try! 

  1. Go to the Classic Catalogue and search by the call number E78.C2 C353 2011
  2. This call number is associated with the text Ending Violence Against Aboriginal women and girls: empowerment - a new beginning: report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. 
  3. If you click on the call number of this item you will be brought to a list of titles located on the same shelf. Here you will notice that the books on either side of the text we searched are The Native imprint: contribution of First Peoples to Canada's Character and Interim report, call into the night: an overview of violence against Aboriginal women.

Finding books by subject heading

Subject Librarian

Contact Us