LibGuides: History: African American History: Books

How to Search for Books

1. Click on ROOsearch to jump to the search page. ROOsearch simultaneously searches all of the library resources with one search!

2. Try a title or keyword search on your figure or topic.

3. Under the search bar, make sure to change "All items" to "Books."

4. Look at several relevant records and note words and phrases from the "subject" area.

5. Go back to the search screen and search BY SUBJECT using the words you identified in step 3.

6. When you find something useful, copy down the call number (for more info. on call numbers, see below!) and location if it's a print book. If the book is an eBook, either click the title of the book or the link that says "click here to read this Electronic Book."

Locating a Book by Call Number

A search for items in ROOsearch will provide you with some basic information about the book, its author, publication date, a call number (or a link if it's an e-book), how many copies are owned, and the book's status or availability (not checked out, checked out, lost, on order, etc.). So how do you use this info to get the actual book?

In locating materials in the library, it is important to understand how these items are organized and shelved. Southworth Library Learning Commons uses the Library of Congress Classification system to organize materials. In general, books in the library are shelved by SUBJECT. What this means is that once you identify one book of interest for your topic, you should be able to locate other books related to your topic on the shelves next to it. Books in most libraries are shelved by their CALL NUMBERS.

If your book's call number does not have a prefix (such as REF or JUV), the book will be shelved in alphanumeric order (letters first, then numbers, then a letter, then a decimal number, etc.) on the second floor in the general stacks. A call number is basically the "address" of where you will find a book in the library.

E457.2 M475 1991 <<< This is the book we want to find!

First, find the area with books whose call number begins with E. E comes before EA, EB, EC, etc. and E comes after D, DC, etc.

Next, use the numbers following the first letter to locate the shelf where the book belongs. 457.2 comes before 457.4 or 458 and after 457.1 or 450.

Then, continue using alphabetic and numerical order along with the call number to locate your book.

Let's take a closer look at what each line of the call number represents:

E The letter represents the subject area (E represents 'History of the Americas'), so find the stack in the library that contains the E section.

457.2 The numbers following the subject area letter refer to a specific subject. (457.2 represents 'Civil War period, 1861-1865')

M475 The third line typically refers to the author's last name. (M = McPherson)

1991 The last line refers to the date the book was published (1991)

If your book has a prefix, the book will be shelved in alphanumeric order within the collection indicated by the prefix:

JUV stands for juvenile, and this collection is housed on the second floor adjacent to the printers.

If you ever have trouble locating a book by call number, just contact the reference desk on the first floor.

Helpful Hints for your Class

In ROOsearch, try searching for books on a particular person, event, or concept. For example, search for Frederick Douglass, Selma march, slave narratives, or the Harlem Renaissance.

Get creative with your keywords and combine useful terms until you get the best and most relevant results (use a sheet of paper to keep a running list of all the keywords you try).

Also, once you've found a book on the library shelves, look at the books nearby. Browse the area, and you'll probably find some more books that may be helpful. This is a great strategy to locate sources and information you may have never found otherwise!

Using Google Books

Use Google Books as a way to locate great books on your topic. We may not have the books at Southworth Library Learning Commons, but you can submit an Interlibrary Loan request. Just sign in with your SUNY Canton username and password. You may need to register if you've never used Interlibrary Loan before. Locate the Submit a New Request option on the left-hand side of the screen, and select Book. Finally, copy and paste (from Google Books) the requested information into those blank fields. It's that simple!

Search Google Books here:

Selected Books from the SLLC Collection

Market Women by Cheryl A. Smith
ISBN: 9780275983796
Publication Date: 2005-06-30
In stark contrast to popular belief, women of the African Diaspora have engaged in economic and leadership activities throughout the course of history. Black women around the world draw from a tradition of thousands of years of strategies that have enabled them to face and conquer the challenges of life as women of color. And yet today, black women are marginalized by an economic and financial community still dominated by white men. In Market Women, educator, activist, and entrepreneur Cheryl Smith sets the record straight, applying insights from a variety of fields to trace the roots of black women's entrepreneurship, as it is currently practiced in the United States. Featuring in-depth interviews with 19 present-day entrepreneurs (in ventures as diverse as catering, bookselling, millinery, and construction), Smith reveals an approach to business that is based on personal relationships, pooling of resources, a sense of humor, apprenticeship and mentoring, and strong mother-daughter bonds that defy traditional definitions of business success, wealth creation, and power. In the process she gives voice to a long-disenfranchised group whose struggles and triumphs in business illuminate universal themes that transcend race and gender. The result is a rich and unique study of business from a fresh and eye-opening perspective and an inspiring account of achieving success against tremendous odds.
Nobody Turn Me Around by Charles Euchner
ISBN: 9780807000595
Publication Date: 2010-06-29
History books record August 28, 1963, as the day when over a quarter-million people rallied in Washington, in the first-ever nationally televised demonstration--when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic I Have a Dream oration. But as Charles Euchner reveals in Nobody Turn Me Around, the march's significance is more surprising and complex than standard treatments allow. With rich oral histories from over one hundred participants--high-profile civil rights leaders but also ordinary Americans, like the marcher who won a train ticket after enduring a brutal jailing--Euchner offers a vivid tale of that day. Nobody Turn Me Around shows the movement at its apex, on the verge of achieving historic reform--and decline. The book shows James Farmer watching the march from his jail cell; Malcolm X's secret vow to help the march, while mocking it from the sidelines; how King really wrote his landmark address; the controversy over John Lewis's damning speech; and devastating undercurrents involving JFK and J. Edgar Hoover. Each scene comes alive in this richly intimate account of the peak of the civil rights era.
On the Shoulders of Giants by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Raymond Obstfeld (As told to)
ISBN: 9781416534891
Publication Date: 2010-12-01
From 1920 to 1940, the Harlem Renaissance produced a bright beacon of light that paved the way for African-Americans all over the country. The unapologetic writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, the fervent fiction and poetry of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, the groundbreaking art of Aaron Douglas and William H. Johnson, and the triumphant music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong gave voice and expression to the thoughts and emotions that Jim Crow segregation laws had long sought to stifle. In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and bestselling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites the reader on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace, through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life. Beginning with the rise of the Harlem Rens as pioneers of professional basketball, Kareem traces the many streams of historical influence that converged to create the man he is today -- the NBA's all-time leading scorer and a veritable African-American icon. Travel deep into the soul of the Renaissance -- to the night clubs, restaurants, basketball games, and fabulous parties that have made footprints in Harlem's history. Meet the athletes, jazz musicians, comedians, actors, politicians, entrepreneurs, and writers who not only inspired Kareem's rise to greatness but an entire nation's. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born in the midst of a cultural reawakening, carried on the shoulders of athletes trying to prove there was a lot more at stake than a ball game, men and women who made music that could break your heart, and writers and intellectuals who gave voice to not just the ideals of a movement but the raw emotions. Kareem tells what it took to get these revolutionaries to Harlem and how they changed the world. A world that is still riding on the shoulders of giants.
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
ISBN: 9780393317084
Publication Date: 1997-10-17
A monumental biography of one of the most important black women of the nineteenth century. Sojourner Truth first gained prominence at an 1851 Akron, Ohio, women's rights conference, saying, "Dat man over dar say dat woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches. . . . Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles . . . and ar'n't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women--indeed, for all strong women. Like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, she is regarded as a radical of immense and enduring influence; yet, unlike them, what is remembered of her consists more of myth than of personality. Now, in a masterful blend of scholarship and sympathetic understanding, eminent black historian Nell Irvin Painter goes beyond the myths, words, and photographs to uncover the life of a complex woman who was born into slavery and died a legend. Inspired by religion, Truth transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into an itinerant pentecostal preacher; her words of empowerment have inspired black women and poor people the world over to this day. As an abolitionist and a feminist, Truth defied the notion that slaves were male and women were white, expounding a fact that still bears repeating: among blacks there are women; among women, there are blacks. No one who heard her speak ever forgot Sojourner Truth, the power and pathos of her voice, and the intelligence of her message. No one who reads Painter's groundbreaking biography will forget this landmark figure and the story of her courageous life. Photographs