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SCHOLARLY BOOKS 101
SCHOLARLY BOOKS 101
Why bother with books?
While it's easy to shy away from long, detailed scholarly books, these can actually be incredibly helpful resources to consult as you do your research! Just like academic articles, scholarly books undergo a rigorous peer-review process, are written by experts, and are published by reliable and trusted publishers such as university presses. In most cases, you'll be consulting what is considered a scholarly monograph or an edited work when you consult books at the library. These are explained just below!
Feeling overwhelmed?
Don't be intimidated: you do not have to read these kinds of books from cover-to-cover! Instead, identify the most interesting & relevant chapters, read closely, and highlight other sources that are cited throughout that chapter to dig a little deeper. This strategy of "tracing footnotes" is an excellent way to follow the scholarly dialogue taking place in the area you are exploring.
Monograph:
Monograph:
A detailed text on a single subject
Usually a single author
Language/writing style: academic/scholarly
Substantial bibliography/works cited
EXAMPLE
Soderman, Braxton. Against Flow : Video Games and the Flowing Subject. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2021.
Edited Volume:
Edited Volume:
A collections of essays dedicated to a particular theme
Multiple contributors/authors
Language/writing: specialized/scholarly
Substantial bibliography/works cited
EXAMPLE
Before the Crash : Early Video Game History. Edited by Mark J. P. Wolf. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012.
FINDING BOOKS AT UCI LIBRARIES
FINDING BOOKS AT UCI LIBRARIES
Run a keyword search in UC Library Search and narrow to "books" or "book chapters" using the filtering system on the left!
Google books searches the full-text of millions of books beyond UCI). Just remember that the full-text is rarely available, so check back with the library to consult our copy or ask me for help!
WorldCat (world catalogue) is a unique tool to search not only for books at UCI Libraries, but many other libraries across the US and even globally in one search!
Finding Books on the Library Shelf:
Finding Books on the Library Shelf:
Because the study of video games is often interdisciplinary, you may find that there are books on various topics in different parts of the library, based on the broader topic. Books are organized using the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) in most academic libraries in North America, and here are some call number ranges to consider:
GV1469.15-GV1469.37 -- Video Games General (G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation)
PN1993-1999 -- Motion Pictures
ML3540.7 --Music in video games (M: Music and Music Literature)
HQ784.VH3 --Child development and video games (H: Social Sciences)
RC569.5 --Addiction and video games (R: Medicine)
QA76.76 --Video game coding (Q: Science/Mathematics)
N7433.8 --Art in video games (N: Art)
LB1028.3 --Video games in education (L: Education)
HQ1233 --Feminism and video games (H: Social Sciences)
UC Library Search 101:
UC Library Search 101:
A short (2 min 26 sec) video on how to utilize UC Library Search to look for material, narrow your results, and access many different resources at UCI Libraries!
KEYWORD SEARCHES vs SUBJECT HEADINGS
KEYWORD SEARCHES vs SUBJECT HEADINGS
A keyword (our 'natural language') search will search fields of information about books such as: author, title, subject, and other descriptors such as the book's table of contents. You also perform a keyword search every time you search in Google! Keyword searches are intuitive, easy, and you usually get plenty of results. The frustrating aspect of keyword searching is that often too many results appear, or some of the results aren't always relevant to your search.
A Subject Heading search is a specific term used to describe the main concept of a book, article, or other resource. Once you find out what the assigned subject terms are for your topic, you can better locate relevant resources by doing a "subject" search. (These are trickier than keyword searches because they are "controlled vocabulary" in that they are predetermined when a book or article is catalogued). Subject searches are used by many academic libraries across North America, so once you know how to navigate these at UCI Libraries, you can apply the same method in other libraries and research settings!
LIBRARIAN TIP: Start with a keyword search. Select the most interesting book that you see in the results, and click on that book to look at the 'record' (the information about it). Scroll down to explore Subject terms are listed, and then try clicking a Subject term if it seems interesting to you! The screenshots below give you an example of this. And if you run this same search, you'll see that the keyword search gaming film yields 2220,000 results while the Subject Heading Motion Pictures and Video Games yields only 29 accurate results.
LIBRARIAN TIP: Start with a keyword search. Select the most interesting book that you see in the results, and click on that book to look at the 'record' (the information about it). Scroll down to explore Subject terms are listed, and then try clicking a Subject term if it seems interesting to you! The screenshots below give you an example of this. And if you run this same search, you'll see that the keyword search gaming film yields 2220,000 results while the Subject Heading Motion Pictures and Video Games yields only 29 accurate results.
Keyword search
Keyword search
Subject Heading
Subject Heading
SOME EXAMPLES OF POSSIBLE SUBJECT HEADINGS TO BROWSE:
To connect to library resources from off campus, the VPN (virtual private network) is required. For more information, visit: https://www.lib.uci.edu/connect.
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