Expos 20: Breaking the Norm

HOLLIS contains records of every item cataloged within every Harvard Library in addition to external records of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles, as well as book citations. Some of the latter items we own; others we don't, but if you find something in HOLLIS, the Library can almost always get it into your hands quickly. Think of HOLLIS as a discovery platform -- a way to search panoramically across subjects, languages, time periods, and information formats.

Use the Advanced Search feature in HOLLIS to try some of the following subject headings* related to the themes for Essay 3:

*Nota bene: Subject headings may contain language that is harmful or offensive. Please see Harvard Library's statement on harmful language in library collections.

Norms and Normativity

deviant behavior	manners and customs
habitus (sociology)	social norms

Gender and Sexuality

feminity	pimps	sex role
gender expression	prostitut*	sex workers
gender and sexuality	prostitution in motion pictures	sexism
gender identity	rape	sexism and literature
gender nonconformity	rape culture	sexism in motion pictures
heterosexism	rape culture in literature	sexual behavior
homophobia	rape in literature	sexual orientation
human trafficking in literature	rape in motion pictures	sexual orientation in literature
human trafficking in motion pictures	rape in popular culture	sexuality
mail order brides	sadomasochism	transgender
masculinity	sex customs OR (sex AND social aspects)	transexual*
men	sex in literature	women
paraphilias	sex in motion pictures

Mental Health and Disability

developmental disabilities	mental illness	people with disabilities
disabilities	mental illness in literature	psychology, pathological
mental health	mental health in motion pictures

Race and Identity

discrimination in motion pictures	peoples by group name (e.g., African Americans, Chinese Americans, Dakota Indians, Bangladeshi Americans, Whites)	race in literature
colorism	prejudices	race in motion pictures
identity (psychology)	race	racism
literature and race	race discrimination in literature

Class, Politics, and Other

dating (social customs)	monogamous relationships	social conditions
capitalism	political aspects	social justice
discrimination	political culture	social mobility
economic conditions	political science	social stratification
elite (social sciences)	politics and government	totalitarianism
income distribution	poverty	utopias
influence (literary, artistic, etc.)	power (social sciences)
mate selection	social classes

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Creating search strings with some of the techniques below can help you get better results up front. 

Get started.

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Formulate your search syntax.

EXACT PHRASE

Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase instead of separate words. Example: "the color purple"

AND, OR, NOT

Boolean operators must be in all caps. Examples: NSA OR "National Security Agency" ; cellular NOT phone

TRUNCATION

An asterisk (*) finds all word endings. Example: child* finds child, children, childhood, childproof, childbirth ...

GROUPING

Use parentheses to group synonyms and do multiple searches at a time. Example: ("Affordable care act" OR Obamacare) AND "birth control"

Refine your search terms.

MORE OR LESS

Add or remove search terms to adjust your results.

UNIQUENESS

Use words that are likely to show up in the material you want and unlikely to show up elsewhere.

CONNECT TO A SUBJECT

Specify the research areas connected to your topic. Examples: "civil war" AND education ; "civil war" AND medical

FOCUS

Narrow down to a:

• GENRE. Examples: AND biography ; AND history ; AND criticism
• FORMAT. Examples: AND statistics ; AND interviews ; AND correspondence
• REGION. Examples: AND Latin America ; AND Middle East
• TIME PERIOD. Examples: AND 18th century ; AND medieval

OTHER TERMS

Explore your results for more search term ideas; pay attention to titles, abstracts, and subject headings.

While the amount of information HOLLIS contains is fabulous, you can sometimes find yourself overwhelmed by either the numbers or types of results your keyword search returns.

When that happens, try one of these easy techniques to bring your results into sharper focus:

Limit your search results set to only the items listed as BOOKS or BOOK CHAPTERS

• Your numbers will immediately get smaller. And with book chapters, you may discover a great resource that you might not have seen if you had relied solely on the titles of books.

 Limit your search results set to items that are identified as PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES.

• You'll eliminate newspaper and magazine materials as well as books, of course, but you'll also raise the visibility of scholarly journal articles in your results set. 

Think about limiting your results to publications from the last 5, 10, 15, or 20 years.

• By doing so you'll get a snapshot of the most recent research trends and scholarly approaches in a field (or around a particular issue).

What should you do if a book that you find in HOLLIS and want to use is:

• checked out to someone else?
• declared missing or lost in the catalog record you are looking at (alas, it happens)?
• on order (that is, coming into the library collection but not yet arrived at Harvard)?
• in process (that is, it's arrived at Harvard but some final things are being done to get it ready for the "stacks," i.e., the library shelves)?

In every one of these cases, open the full item record and look for the INTERLIBRARY LOAN option toward the bottom of the screen (under Access options. Follow the prompts from there. If it's only 1-2 chapters you need, select the option for SCAN & DELIVER, instead.

We'll get a copy of the book for you, within 4 days, from another university library. 

Need an article that's not online or in a journal on the shelf? Either of the above options (INTERLIBRARY LOAN or SCAN & DELIVER) should work.

For more tips on tracking down materials at Harvard Library, see Locating Sources (Harvard Guide to Using Sources).