• ALWAYS browse the books near the one you are looking for. If there is one book on your topic, chances are there are more and they will all be shelved together!
• Briefly look through the table of contents and/or indexes for relevant material for your paper.
• Read the introduction, forward, etc. to get a feel for the book's purpose and point of view. Sometimes the introduction to a complicated topic gives you enough of a summary to help you form your own thesis or structure your own paper. 
• Take note of appendices that may contain maps, chronologies, etc. 
• Use the bibliographies to point you to other secondary and primary sources.

Use Primo to locate materials available through ZSR Library. Search by keyword, author, title, or subject, or use the Advanced Search option to combine these features. From the search box, choose "Library Catalog" to search just books, ebooks, films, and similar materials. Choose "Everything" to include individual journal and magazine/news articles, government documents, and HathiTrust books in your search. 

Books may serve as either primary or secondary sources, depending on the content and when they were written. Books may also contain references to primary source material in the text or in the bibliography. 

You can start with a keyword search to identify relevant items. From there, look at the subject headings used to describe that item to identify other potential items (click on the subject heading to see all other items that are tagged with that subject). 

Example:

To locate potential primary sources, look for genres/subject headings that contain the generic term, sources, or more specific terms such as diaries, letters, correspondence, autobiography, interviews, or personal narratives. 

If you can't find the information you need through the ZSR Library's online catalog, try searching WorldCat, which includes holdings information from other libraries. You can request these books through Interlibrary Loan if you are on campus. (Remember that it may take 1-2 weeks or more for items to arrive through Interlibrary Loan, so plan ahead!) Note that libraries are not allowed to loan ebooks through Interlibrary Loan. In cases where you are unable to access the physical book, but just need a portion of the book, you may be able to request a chapter or two be scanned and emailed to you, rather than a physical copy. You can also check for full text ebooks through resources such as the Internet Archive. Contact me using the links to the right if you have questions!