Books are especially good for finding broad, in-depth analysis of a particular subject. They can generally offer more complete information and greater historical perspective than you will find in journals or other types of sources. Because the publishing cycle can take a year or more, you're not likely to find the very latest information in books.
Use UC Library Search to find books, ebooks, films/videos, government publications, etc. available at UCSD.
Begin with a keyword search, such as:
homeless* study
(Note that the * is a truncation symbol, i.e. homeless* also returns results for homelessness.)
When you find a record for a book that looks useful, take a look at the subject headings as shown in the red box below. 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.
UC Library Search is the first stop for finding books, journals, documents, maps and all other material located physically in the UCSD and other UC libraries, as well as online resources purchased for your use.
Tip: select the Library Catalog radio button and change the "material type" drop-down to books if you're specifically searching for books. Using the limit options on the left of the results screen will help you focus the results to a date range, for items available online, and items in a specific library or location, among other possibilities.
Bonus search tip:
These library catalogs only search certain fields (e.g. author, title, subject) of books, not the full text. If you have trouble finding books using the catalogs, try searching Google Books. In Google Books, you can search the full text; this can be really helpful in identifying books of possible interest. If you find a title you like in Google Books, just copy/paste the title into one of the library catalogs to see if it's available at the library.
Circuit is a shared catalog that searches the library holdings of UCSD, San Diego State, University of San Diego, and San Diego city and 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 Circuit library, it can be delivered to UCSD in 1-3 days.
The library is increasingly purchasing books in electronic format rather than traditional print format. Usually, there aren't a lot of issues in accessing these items as long as you're on campus or connecting through the VPN if off campus. If you do happen to run into a problem, take a look at this troubleshooting guide to see if it can help resolve the issue.
