Subject & Research Guides: Hispanic Studies: Core Resources in Hispanic Studies

Library Catalogs: Books

Search here for books!

Once you find a book, you will need to locate it on the shelf. Connecticut College uses Library of Congress call numbers to organize books. Read more information about LC Call Numbers here.

Books in the library are organized by subject. Start looking for books by browsing. When you find a relevant book, be sure to browse the surrounding area for other books that you might find interesting.

Latin American History (includes Caribbean countries)
F1201-3799
Anthropology
GN560
Folklore
Hispanic Americans: GR111.H57
Mexican Americans: GR111.M49
Latin America: GR114-133
Spanish Language Literature
PC4001-4977
Portuguese Language Literature
PC5001-5498
Languages of Mexico and Central America Literature
PM3001-4566
Languages of South America and the West Indies Literature
PM5001-7356
Spanish American Literature
PQ7081-8560

Once you find a book, you will need to locate it on the shelf. Connecticut College uses Library of Congress call numbers to organize books. Read more information about LC Call Numbers here. The following video walks you through this process.

Identify key concepts
Start by identifying some key concepts related to your topic.
Determine keywords
Using the concepts you identified, make lists of words, people, or phrases that describe the concepts.
Search using the keywords
Use the keywords you created to search. Databases are not smart - they look for exact word matches. The more words you use to describe your concept, the more results you will get.
Use AND & OR
Using AND between terms limits your search, using OR expands it. Connect different concepts with AND (guns AND violence), and connect synonyms with OR (guns OR firearms AND violence).
Use truncation
Truncating allows you to tell the database to search for all words that begin with the same root. It's a great way to search for the both singular and plural forms of a word at once. The truncation symbol is usually an asterisk (immigra* will search for immigration, immigrant, and immigrants).
Limit search results
Use the database limiters often found on the right or left hand side of the page to narrow by date, publication, subject heading, etc.
Be flexible and creative
Modify your search and try as many combinations of words as you need to find the best information.

Finding & Requesting Books from Other Libraries

Interlibrary Loan
WorldCat

Interlibrary Loan service (ILL) obtains materials that are unavailable in our own collection. It is available to all current Connecticut College faculty, staff, and students.

Requests for books owned by Trinity College or Wesleyan University may be placed directly through OneSearch. To place a request, log in to OneSearch, search for the item, click the item title, then "Request Book from Another Library (Interlibrary Loan)" at the bottom of the screen. A request for an item from Trinity or Wesleyan will often arrive within 48 hours.

WorldCat is a catalog of books and other materials held in libraries worldwide. Use this database to search for materials outside the CTW catalog, and place requests through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). It takes approximately eight days for an ILL book loan to arrive and two days for an article request to be delivered as a PDF. You will receive an email when your materials are ready for pick up or have been delivered to your account.

Library Databases: Articles

A database is an electronic retrieval tool and organization system for collections of catalog records, images, documents, or citations.

Because Hispanic Studies is interdisciplinary, you will probably need to use additional subject-specific databases (History databases, for example). You can start here, then visit the Databases page for more options.

General Hispanic Studies Databases

SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Provides coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study including abortion, criminology & criminal justice, demography, gender studies, ethnic & racial studies, rural & urban sociology, social psychology and many others.
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window
Hispanic views on nearly every major theme in American life. Hundreds of searchable newspapers published in the United States by Hispanics.
Informe (Revistas en Espanol) This link opens in a new window
Full-text Spanish-language and bilingual periodicals.

Literature Resources

These are additional databases for conducting literary criticism or background research on works of literature or authors.

LION (Literature Online) This link opens in a new window
Alibrary of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 361 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.
Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras and genres: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Shakespeare Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Combines an extensive collection of full-text journals with the definitive index for the study and teaching of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric, writing studies, folklore, film, theater, and other dramatic arts.

The library provides access to many research databases. Databases connect you to full-text sources that are often unavailable through search engines, such as Google.

A journal is a scholarly periodical containing articles written by academics, researchers, and other experts in a given field. Unlike newspapers and magazines, which are intended for general audiences, journals are intended for an academic or technical audience.

Here are some core journals in this field.

Bulletin of Latin American Research
Publishes original research of current interest on Latin America, the Caribbean, inter-American relations and the Latin American Diaspora from all academic disciplines within the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Hispanic American Historical Review
Covers the study of Latin American history and culture in the United States and remains the most widely respected journal in the field.
Journal of Latin American Studies
presents recent research in the field of Latin American studies in development studies, economics, geography, history, politics and international relations, public policy, sociology and social anthropology.
Latin American Perspectives
A theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas and offers a multidisciplinary view of the forces that shape the Americas

You've been searching in one of the library's databases and found an article that looks interesting. In many cases, a link to the article will be visible, but sometimes the full text isn't provided. This short video shows you how to quickly access the full text.

Important Websites

Pew Research Center: Hispanic Trends
Includes publications, interactive resources, and data published by the Pew Research Center. A great resource for contemporary information.
Hispanic Digital Library/Biblioteca Digital Hispánica
Featuring 100,000-plus items, this outstanding resource comprises books, manuscripts (theatrical/literary), drawings, photographs, engravings, cartographic materials, music scores, sound recordings, newspapers, and magazines. Materials highlight various aspects and accomplishments of the Hispanic cultural heritage, allowing researchers to view or listen to items ranging from the 11th century to the present.
IRIS
IRIS is a collection of instruments, materials, stimuli, and data coding and analysis tools used for research into second languages, including second and foreign language learning, multilingualism, language education, language use and processing. Materials are freely accessible and searchable, easy to upload (for contributions) and download (for use).