American Studies

Keyword searches often retrieve too many results, including materials that are irrelevant to your topic. Meanwhile, Title searches can be too narrow and leave you with no results. The answer is an approach that figures somewhere in the middle: Subject Headings. Subject headings are terms (topics, proper names, geographic regions, etc.) that indicate the scope of a book or other resource. 

Try it yourself: you can copy and paste these example headings right into a catalog search for Subjects.

American Literature

American poetry

American diaries

African American Authors 

Political Science United States

United States Economic Policy

United States History

United States Politics and Government

United States Social Life and Customs

The Occidental College Library uses the Library of Congress (LC) classification system to organize physical books by call numbers in the library book tiers. The tiers are found by turning left when you enter the main floor of the library or asking the information desk for help!

Call number areas that include materials relevant to American Studies include the following: