Mexican-American Literature: Eagle Library Search

Eagle Library Search, or ELS for short is a search tool that allows you to search the majority of the library's physical and electronic resources simultaneously along with additional sources such as Research Guides, Library information, HCC program information, and scholarly open access resources.

ELS brings you results in all material types and from all of these resources in a single list which can then be manipulated by editing your search terms, narrowing your source types, or selecting only certain providers.

Use ELS to jump-start your research

• Get an overview of the number and types of resources available.
• Get links to research starters, guides, and other background sources.
• Have immediate access to full text materials and media.

Use ELS to take a deeper dive into your research project

• Use limiters to select only scholarly articles.
• Select source types as your project progresses. Do you need articles, books, or primary sources?
• Select specialized databases to select more relevant materials.
• Use advanced searching to refine your search, add terms, and use boolean operators. The Advanced search option appears underneath your search terms at the top of the result page.
• Advanced searching also allows you to select field codes to narrow your terms to only certain elements of each entry, such as title, author, or subject terms.

Use ELS to Build a Precise Search Using Boolean Operators (and, or, not)

By default ELS searches for your search terms that occur somewhat close together (proximity). By using the Boolean operators -- and especially AND between your search terms and phrases -- you can make your search stronger and more accurate.

• Use AND between your search terms to get all the items that match all your search terms and ONLY those, for example: social media and memes. You can also add AND and additional terms to narrow the search even more: social media and memes and regulation.
• Use OR between synonyms or near synonyms to get all items that match ANY of the terms, for example: United States or USA or America.
• Use NOT before a search term to get all results except those that match the term after NOT; for example: civil war not United States.

In addition, in ELS

• Use quotation marks to use an exact phrase as your search term: "Painful Case" ; or "painful case" and Joyce
• Use * to replace one or more letters at the end of a word: immigra* instead of immigration or immigrating or immigrant.
• Use parentheses to control the order of searches: (social media and memes and regulation) and (United States or USA or America).

Using These Search Templates will improve your searches in the HCC Libraries’ ELS, library databases, and library catalog. Combine and adapt the templates to express your search creativity and to find exactly what you want.

• This “template” is used often, even though it is the weakest kind of search phrase. It is very useful as a check to make sure that there are at least some results available that match your search term.
• If your search term includes more than one word (______  ______), it will match items where the search words are close together. Consider using the AND template or the “” template if you get too few results.

• The AND template is used to search for items that match 2 different search terms. AND is a valuable tool to focus or narrow your search.
• The template can be extended by adding additional AND _______ phrases indefinitely. For example, ________ and ________ and ________ . Each AND focuses (narrows) the search further.

• Adding more words to your search phrase usually narrows your search in library tools. The OR template is a way to broaden your search -- to avoid leaving out valuable matches. 
• It can be combined with the AND template using the ( ) template to make your search complete yet precise.

• The NOT template is used to exclude “false hits” that match your word but not your concept.
• You may not be aware that your search term has another meaning or use. The art of the NOT _______ template is finding a way to exclude what you don’t want.
• Often a more effective way to narrow your search is by using the AND template.

• The “” template is used to search for multiple-word phrases for a single concept.
• It can be used multiple times in any search phrase.

• The * template (truncation) is used to search and find all forms of your search term by replacing none or more letters at the end of a word.
• It can used more than once anywhere in your search phrase.

• The ( ) template is used to create complex search phrases that combine more than one of the templates. 

Example: (Chican* or "Mexican American") and literature