Latina/o Studies 405: Finding Primary Sources in FRANCIS

Search by Author

Memoirs, speeches, writings, and correspondence of a known person can be found by doing an author search in FRANCIS using the person's name (last name followed by first).

Papers of political parties, organizations, government agencies, or associations can sometimes be found by doing an author search on FRANCIS using the name of the party, agency or organization.

Search by Subject

Usually, FRANCIS records have at least one subject heading describing the general topic of the book, video, or other material. Subject headings can be subdivided to indicate further topical breakdown, geographical location, time period, or the format of the item. Some of the format subdivisions for primary sources that may be useful for this course include:

Biography includes biographies or autobiographies

Interviews

Sources: collections of contemporary writings

Search by Advanced Keyword

Advanced Keyword searching provides more flexibility in combining different parts of subject headings and other fields.

  1. Go to the Advanced Keyword search screen
  2. On the first line under field, choose Subject
  3. Enter one of the above subdivisions in the search box
  4. Combine with AND
  5. On the second line, choose Subject or Any Field
  6. Enter a subject of interest
  7. Browse through the results.

Searching Beyond FRANCIS

The same search strategies can be used in other library catalogs. Try re-running your searches in NExpress, or search WorldCat, a catalog of over 9,000 libraries in the U.S. and around the world.