Finding Books & Articles - HCOL 2000 - Poet Warrior: Works of Joy Harjo - Grosvenor (Fall 2024) - UVM Libraries Research Guides at UVM Libraries

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This resource provides access to a wide variety of research materials from the UVM Libraries. Use it to locate books, articles, government publications, films, music, images, archival materials, and more.

Finding Books: For best results finding books use the Advanced Search in CATQuest and limit the search to Library Catalog.

Tip: Use an * at the end of a search term to search for variant versions of a term. For example poet* will find poet, poets, poetry, poetic.

Tutorial: Searching the Libraries Collections with CATQuest

Get to know CATQuest, a powerful discovery tool that searches nearly everything in UVM Libraries' physical and digital collections.

Searching the Libraries' Collections with CATQuest

Filetype: Interactive web content

Time to completion: 15:00-20:00 minutes

Terminology for Searching Library Catalogs

Subject Headings (Library of Congress)

Useful Keywords

Library of Congress Subject Headings are used to describe the books in our and other library collections. They are standardized terms assigned by the Library of Congress and change slowly. Some terms describe the genre of a work while others may describe the topic. In CATQuest when you look at the full information about a books you will see these in the section marked "Subjects." Use the associated links to find additional works with the designated subject.

Harjo, Joy
Indians of North America
Criticism and Interpretation
History and Criticism
Interviews
American literature -- Indian Authors
Poetry
Creek Indians
Ecofeminism

When you search for books your search can also find words beyond the subjects listed. These words might be in the title of the book, the title of chapter in an edited volume, or in a narrative description of a book. There can be a lot of variance in these words. In addition to the terms already mentioned as subject terms you might also try the following (and any specific thing you may be trying to find related to Harjo's work):

Joy Harjo
Native Americans
Indigenous
Muscogee

The Problem with Library of Congress Subject Headings

Library of Congress Subject Headings are often problematic. If you would like to learn more about efforts to decolonize subject headings and remove harmful terminology from library catalogs you might start with the following:

Change the Subject
Publication Date: 2019
This film tells the story of a group of college students, who from their first days at Dartmouth College, were committed to advancing and promoting the rights and dignity of undocumented peoples. Sparked by an instance of anti-immigrant sentiment in their library catalog, these students carried their advocacy all the way from Dartmouth Library to the halls of Congress. The film shows how an instance of campus activism entered the national spotlight, and how a cataloging term became a flashpoint in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

Decolonizing Canadian Metadata: An Overdue Step in Removing Harmful Subject Headings
This short report from the Canadian Research Knowledge Network explains why research network decided to remove the Library of Congress Subject Heading "American Indians" from their catalog and replace it with "Indigenous Peoples."

Use Our Words Toolkit
In depth resources from Canada on decolonizing library terminology and replacing it with terminology used by indigenous peoples.