Books Provide:
Dedicated treatment
Historical overview
Background information
Single view or opinion
Use OneSearch to find both print and electronic books in John Jay's Lloyd Sealy Library as well as other CUNY libraries. The search box can be found on our library's homepage. Click on the image below:
To search for books only, you may want to limit your search by clicking inside the circle to the left of Books (see above) although it is not necessary. You may also limit your search to books once you have retrieved a list of relevant sources.
Search for a particular book using the exact title or author, or a combination of distinctive words from each to determine if our library owns the exact book you want. If we do not own that title, click here for information on getting books from other CUNY campus libraries through CLICS.
To search for books on a specific subject, type in keyword(s) and/or phrase(s) which best describe your topic. Broaden or narrow your search if you're dissatisfied with your results.
Click on the title of those books you find relevant.
For print books: write down the CALL NUMBER and LOCATION of the books you wish to find in the library. Books are organized according to their location and call number:
Reference (2nd floor, top level)
Reference Law (2nd floor, south side of building near bound periodicals)
Stacks (books that circulate, see below)
Call number beginning with A-H are on the 2nd floor
Call number beginning with J-Z are on the 1st floor
Reserve (1st floor, Reserve desk)
For electronic books: Please remember, not every book is digitized! We do have a large collection of ebook titles and ebook collections available remotely (from your home or work computer, phone, etc.).
If a book is available electronically, you will see a Available online link in OneSearch. Use your John Jay email username (firstname.lastname) and password to login once you are taken to the book's database site.
To set up your John Jay email account or if you are experiencing difficulties with your John Jay email username and password, go to reset.jjay.cuny.edu to set up and/or change your password. If you are still experiencing problems, contact the DoIt Helpdesk at 212.237.8200 for further assistance.
(Please keep in mind, as a general rule, electronic books owned by specific CUNY libraries other than John Jay are most probably only available to John Jay students onsite--within that owning library using their computers. Ebooks marked CUNY should be available online to all CUNY students.)
Please see our Ebooks library guide for more information for finding and using electronic books.
It's helpful to consider official Library of Congress headings when researching specific issues related to ethnic studies or specific ethnic/religious/racial groups. Understanding and using subject headings for ethnic studies research can be a useful tool for accessing information. Political and social issues not withstanding, there are challenges in both the abundance of and changing terminology associated with Library of Congress subject headings related to ethnic groups and how they are used in libraries (see Beall's Ethnic Groups and Library of Congress Subject Headings for an in depth discussion and Adler and Harper's Race and Ethnicity in Classification Systems: Teaching Knowledge Organization from a Social Justice Perspective for a discussion on how the classification and organization of information are directly connected to issues of social justice, diversity, and inclusion).
SOME GENERAL SUBJECT HEADINGS:
Immigrants – United States —History
Immigrants – United States – Social conditions
Minorities – United States
Cultural pluralism -- United States
Ethnology -- United States
Ethnic Identity
Ethnicity - United States
Sample Library of Congress Subjects Headings for A FEW SPECIFIC ETHNIC GROUPS:
African Americans
Chinese Americans
Cuban Americans
Ethiopian Americans
Greek Americans
Hispanic Americans
Indians of North America (general)/Comanche lndians (narrow)
Mexican Americans
Books in the Library are organized according to location and call number.
Location:
Reference (2nd floor, top level)
Reference Law (2nd floor, south side of building near bound periodicals)
Stacks (books that circulate, see below)
Call number beginning with A-H are on the 2nd floor
Call number beginning with J-Z are on the 1st floor
Reserve (1st floor, Reserve desk)
Call number:
Every book in the Library has a unique call number. Check out How to read a call number to find out how call numbers work.
Books are in ALPHANUMERICAL order (alphabetical by letter then by number)
Every book has a unique Library of Congress call number. Think of the call number as the address of the book, in that it tells us exactly where, on the shelves, we can expect to find a particular book. Books are arranged alphanumerically on the shelves--first alphabetically, then numerically--by call number.
For instance:
HA Alphabetical by letter(s)
1625 All HA books shelved in numerical order
.O87 Further ordered alphanumerically by letter then decimal
1999 Year of publication
The four books above are in the correct order.
See the complete list of Library of Congress subject classes and subclasses here:http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html