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HIST 335 Science and Medicine in Canada

Using the library catalogue and databases

Once you've brainstormed a topic and keywords, you can begin your search in the McGill library catalogue and in relevant article databases.

McGill has one library catalogue:  WorldCat

Here are some basic search tricks for the catalogues and all databases:

Truncation symbol:

*

e.g. histor? will retrieve catalogue records containing the words history, histories, historical, etc.

Phrase searching:

"___"

e.g. "New Brunswick" will retrieve only catalogue records containing the entire phrase New Brunswick

Boolean operators:

(), AND, OR, NOT
default: AND

e.g. history AND (Canada OR "United States") will retrieve catalogue records containing the word history plus either Canada OR the phrase United States. Remember: AND will make your search narrower and OR will make your search wider.

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