About
Books: Finding and Using Books at KU Libraries and Beyond
Library Catalog search tips
Search Tips
Keyword
- Enter words in any order
- Use quotes to search phrases: "central asia"
- Use ? to truncate: ukrain?
AND, OR, NOT (Boolean operators)
- Combine terms: puskhkin AND lermontov
- Use NOT judicioulsly so you don't exclude relevant content
- Use parentheses: (poland or polish) AND cinema
Author
- Last name first: platonov, andrei
- Spaces in initials: turgenev, i s
- Include periods in acronyms: U.S.S.R.
Title, Journal Title
- Omit initial articles (a, an, the...)
Subject Headings
- Omit punctuation
- Search Limits do NOT apply
Recommend a book
Booksellers
- FindBook.ruMeta-search tool that searches the inventory of 29 Russian online booksellers. Поиск книг в российских Интернет-магазинах.
- BookFinder.comMeta-search tool - great for finding used books. Over 150 million books for sale: new, used, rare, out of print, international, textbooks, etc.
- East View Information ServicesReliable service; prices are high. Company based in Minneapolis with offices worldwide. Covers Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Central Asia and more.
- Esterum.comExtremely reliable; prices are high.
- MIPP InternationalReliable; covers Russian regions well, including Russia, Central Asia, Baltic states, Mongolia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova; prices are high
Can't find it at KU?
Can't find it at KU? Search WorldCat, then borrow via Interlibrary Loan.
- WorldCat This link opens in a new windowSearch WorldCat to find books in other major research libraries. Then, request to borrow books through KU's Interlibrary Loan service.
- Interlibrary Loan & Document DeliveryHelps you get books and articles not owned by KU. Watch the tutorial below to learn how to use this service.
Search HathiTrust
- HathiTrustHathiTrust has many Slavic-related primary and secondary sources published piror to 1923. Log in with your partner institution account to access the largest number of volumes and features.
Google Books
- Google book search This link opens in a new windowGoogle Book Search (unlike WorldCat) searches the full-text of the books in its inventory. WorldCat is limited to searching only by title, author, subject heading, and other specific and limited information about a book. Because Google Book Search lets you search within books, you can see a table of contents, or an index, or just a portion of a book. You can then locate the book in a nearby library.
Foreign Library Catalogs
- РНБ - Электронный каталог (1725 - )Online catalog of the National Library of Russia (St. Petersburg).
- РГБ - Единый электронный каталог (ЭК)Online catalog of the Russian State Library (Moscow).
- Президентская библиотека имени Б.Н.ЕльцинаBoris Yeltsin Presidental Library (National digital library of the Russian Federation).
- Національна бібліотека України - Електронні каталогиКомплексний пошук у каталогах Бібліотеки.
Interlibrary Loan - Tutorial
E-books and Ebrary (examples)
E-Books
Use Ebrary to search for e-books about Slavic cultures, languages, linguistics, literatures, and more.
Find Theses & Dissertations
Dissertations & Theses
- ProQuest dissertations & theses global This link opens in a new windowProvides online access to over 3.8 million dissertations and master's theses with 1.7 million available in full text for immediate downloading. Citations are available for dissertations dating from 1861 and full text online from 1997 for over 1,000 schools submitting to the ProQuest UMI database. More than 90,000 new citations are added to the database every year.
- Russian Academy of sciences bibliographies This link opens in a new windowIndexes journals and dissertations in the social sciences and humanities with topics as diverse as archaeology, economics, history, law, linguistics, literary criticism, philosophy, political science, and religious studies. Includes citations and abstracts of journal articles, books, manuscripts, and dissertations published primarily in Russia, the republics of the former Soviet Union, and countries in Eastern Europe. Original script display is available for journals published in Cyrillic.
- UTREESFree online index of British and Irish university theses in Russian and East European studies. Over 5,800 doctoral and masters’ theses, the oldest dating from 1907.
- Электронная библиотека диссертаций (Open Access)Search Russian dissertations, mostly on Russian language and linguistics. Dissertations are open access.