Use UC Library Search to find books, ebooks, films/videos, government publications, etc. about your topic that are available at UC San Diego and/or other UC libraries.
I strongly recommend going directly to the advanced search screen and selecting "UC San Diego Library Catalog" to start your search.
Begin with a keyword search, for example
"san diego" AND "north park"
"san diego" AND (uptown OR hillcrest)
"san diego" AND demographics
"san diego" AND community plan*
(Note that the * is a truncation symbol, i.e. plan* returns results for plan, plans, planning, etc.)
When you find a record for a book that looks useful, take a look at the subject headings. In UC Library Search, these subject headings are clickable links that run a new search. Searching by these subject headings may help find resources that don't turn up with an initial keyword search. They might also give you ideas of other search terms to use in your keyword search.
See the main USP library guide to see common urban studies-related subject headings.
The Library is increasingly purchasing books in electronic format rather than traditional print format. These books are listed in our catalog just like other books, and you can even limit your catalog search to find just the books that are available online.
To do this, do your general keyword search first. When the results come up, you'll see several options on the left to limit the results; one of those options is "show only available online."
In addition to using UC Library Search to limit to electronic materials (as described above), you might want to check some of our ebook collections. See the library's ebooks guide for:
Important note: It can take a while for ebooks to make their way into UC Library Search. Try searching the catalog and/or the ebook collections above, but feel free to email me if there's a recent title you really want and can't find; I'll do some sleuthing to see if we have access.
UC Library Search is the first stop for finding books, journals, documents, maps and all other material located physically in the UCSD libraries, as well as online resources purchased for your use.
You can use the same catalog to find materials at other UC libraries and Worldcat, which searches libraries worldwide. Requests from other libraries can take up to three weeks to arrive, so start your research early!
Bonus search tip: Having trouble finding relevant books using the online catalog? You can search the full text of many books using Google Books to identify books of possible interest, then do a title search in the library catalogs to determine if we have access.
Circuit is a shared library catalog that searches the holdings of all San Diego university libraries and the San Diego City/County Public Libraries.
If a book you need is already checked out at UCSD, or if or we don't own a book that you need, check in Circuit. If it’s available at another San Diego Circuit library, it can be delivered to UCSD in 1-3 days.
If a book or article you want isn't available at UCSD, the Circuit libraries or other UC libraries, try our free Interlibrary Loan service. We'll try to locate the item at another library and request it for you.
