Most instructors are, of course, already aware of many resources in their disciplines that are appropriate to this national period of reflection. The Library of Congress's Historic American Newspapers and the Oxford African American Studies Center are just two of hundreds of possible examples. But here are a couple quick, less well-known tips for finding material within libraries' peculiar system of organization.
In Marist's Collections
The phrase "African Americans" is a powerful tool in the Advanced Search section of the library catalog. Most materials can be retrieved using this term, then narrowed by factors such as medium: print, video or digital - or discipline: history, literature, politics, economics, anthropology, etc. The search below retrieves 113 audiovisual materials by or about African Americans. (By the way, our MLK Day post includes some extraordinary a/v links, just in case you missed it.)
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"Race and biology" as a library catalog keyword search is effective in a collection of our size (as would be "eugenics" or "phrenology"), but can be overly broad in larger databases.
In Academic Search Elite for example "race and biology" yields useful results, but with some unhelpful outliers). To clean this up, go to Advanced Search (an option in almost any database), and limit your search to Subject Terms.
Obviously, these tips are short and general. Give a call (x3292) for quick, more specific help, or contact your liaison or Ask A Librarian for a detailed consultation.
