• Use LibrarySearch (above) to find information in lots of different formats: books, e-books, articles, videos, and more.  You will also find the LibrarySearch box on the Library's home page.

• First Nations or Indians? The term First Nations is widely used and understood in Canada.  However, in the United States, native North Americans refer to themselves as Native Americans, American Indians, or simply Indians. Even in Canada, some official documents (the Indian Act, for example), organizations, agencies and programs (such as Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and NITEP), still use the older term.  When searching library catalogues and databases, you will usually retrieve more results with the term Indians of North America (or just Indians) than you will with the term First Nations.

• Be specific. For example, use terms for specific cultural/linguistic groups, such as Coast Salish and for specific social groups, such as Indian children, Metis women, etc.   Where approrpriate, add a geographic term to your search, such as Indian children and British Columbia.

• Use quotation marks for phrases.  "Aboriginal education" will get fewer results than Aboriginal education, but those results will be more useful.  Using quotation marks for phrases will improve your Google searches, too.

• Limit your results.  Use the limiters on the left side of the screen (under the heading Refine your search) to narrow your result set.  Excluding newspaper articles is a quick way to reduce the number of your results.  To get only the most recent information, limit by publication date.

• Try alternate spellings.  If the Canadian spelling of a term doesn't work, try the U.S. spelling, such as behavior instread of behaviour.

Each result in LibrarySearch identifies the type of item: book, e-book, journal article, video, etc. 

Items that are available online have a Full Text link.  Click it to access the item.

Books, videos, and other items that are in the Library have a link called Check Availability.  Click it to see which campus library holds the item, where it is in the Library, and whether it is on the shelf or on loan.  You can request items that are at other campus libraries, or are on loan to someone else. 

You may have a reference for an article that does not have a Full Text link.  The Availability information says Citation Online.  In these cases, the Library does not have access to the full article, it only has the details you see on the screen (when and where the article was published).  Click the title to get to a screen that lets you request the article on Interlibrary Loan.