All Guides: Media and Cultural Studies: Books

Finding Books

Why use books as research resources? Books can be a great introduction to a topic as their length allows them to go more in-depth and provide more context on a subject in a broader way than an article might. Edited volumes of books are also great because they can serve as one single resource that contains a curated collection of writings on one topic.

Interested in utilizing books for your research? A nice tip to help get you started might be to browse the shelf. The Library of Congress call number system is organized so that books on similar topics are shelved near each other, so if you find a book you think would be helpful, the ones near it might also be good resources for you. Here are some call number sections to get you started:

For film resources, try PN1993-1999
For broadcast media resources, try PN1990-1992.92
For critical theory resources, try PN80-99
For journalism resources, try PN4699-5650

Searching for books using our online catalog? You can still see nearby books–just use our Browse the Shelf feature. It can be found underneath the "Item Description" bar in the item record and shows which books would be next to that book on the actual shelf. Check it out! Use the search box below to start searching for both physical and electronic books.

eBook Resources

The library has recently gained access to a number of different eBook providers, each with a wide variety of resources available to use. If you know there's a book you need for your research, but now aren't able to get it physically, there are great places to look for electronic access. For more information on the electronic resources available to you, you can turn to our Electronic Resources & Remote Learning.

Knowledge Unlatched This link opens in a new window
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Open access to scholarly ebooks primarily in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Open Book Publishers This link opens in a new window
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Find peer-reviewed open access books in a variety of subjects.
eBooks on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
Access to e-books covering the arts & humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Selected Online Reference Books

Dictionary of Film Studies Written by experts in the field, this dictionary covers all aspects of film studies, including terms, concepts, debates, and movements in film theory and criticism, national, international and transnational cinemas, film history, film movements and genres, film industry organizations and practices, and key technical terms and concepts in 500 detailed entries.
Dictionary of Media and Communication This authoritative and up-to-date A–Z offers points of connection between communication and media and covers all aspects of interpersonal, mass, and networked communication, including digital and mobile media, advertising, journalism, social media, and nonverbal communication.
A Dictionary of Journalism This accessible and authoritative A–Z covers the wide range of terms likely to be encountered by students of journalism. It offers a broad, accessible point of reference on an ever-topical and constantly changing field that affects everyone's knowledge and perception of the world.
Dictionary Plus Society & Culture This dictionary comprises authoritative, highly accessible entries relating to society and culture—from mythology, media, sexuality, and cultural traditions, to food and drink, art, and sports, among many other subjects. These entries are supplementary to other titles covering society and culture in the Quick Reference collection, and are written by specialist authors

Online Subject Reference Books

Check out these links for a topic overviews in subject-specific reference sources that are available to you online.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window Access to general and subject-specific reference books (encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations and proverbs). Provides a graphics-based Concept Mapping option for topic exploration.
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online This link opens in a new window Fulltext of the Encyclopaedia with links to Internet resources.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window Resource of reference materials such as dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. Provides database-wide searching, subject searching across sources, and individual title searching.
eBooks (Gale) This link opens in a new window Search across subject-specific reference encyclopedias.