The following procedures outline a simple and effective strategy for finding information in or through the University Libraries.

1. Find Books 

Display the Howard University Libraries home page [http://www.howard.edu/library] and click on STERLING. You may search Sterling by author, title, subject heading, keyword, call number or an international standard number.

To search the catalogs of other institutions, go to the Libraries home page and click on Other Catalogs. 

To find out what books are in print, go to "Site Index," scroll down the list and click on "Publishers." Look under Publishers & Booksellers and click on a directory, such as Books in Print, or a selected company from "US Publishers Homepages.". 

2. Find Periodical Articles

Use general and specialized indexes in the discipline in which you are interested.

To see the electronic indexes subscribed to by the Libraries, go to the Libraries homepage; click on Databases (Articles, Images, Data)

To look at the indexes on CD-ROM, go to the Libraries homepage. Look under Site Index and find "Databases on CD-ROM".

3. Find Newspapers Articles

For the full text of news articles, see Lexis-Nexis Universe database, which is listed under Databases (Articles, Images, Data) on the Libraries homepage.

For historical research, go to the Undergraduate Library, Current Periodicals Room, for newspaper indexes such as the London Times Index.

4. Find Dissertations

Search Dissertation Abstracts from 1861 to current year on CD-ROM to get an abstract of a dissertation. Ask for Dissertation Abstracts at the Reference Desk in The Founders Library.

The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center has a collection of theses and dissertations from Howard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. (The Library of Congress has a collection of dissertations from universities throughout the U.S.A.) 

5. Find Statistics

To find statistical sources, go to Databases (Articles, Images, Data) and and click on the keyword "Statistics"

6. Find Factual Information

In Sterling, the online catalog, search by keyword to find general and specific research guides, encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, yearbooks, directories, and bibliographies.

For example, to find an education dictionary, type education and dictionary.

Many sources for factual information can be accessed through the Libraries homepage. First, display the library home page. Then, click on "Site Index," and choose one of the sources listed under "Factbooks."