Day 1
All of us know the military library system is rather limited. However, we can often find sources by checking library holdings via the Internet. Students can begin the hunt by first examining the bibliography at the end of a textbook or textbook chapter. This bibliography provides the initial step for finding important historians who are experts in areas students might wish to do research.
Once a student knows a book author or title he or she would like to get, the library holdings can be checked rather easily.
Open the Army library Internet site by clicking onto:
Army: http://www.ulinet.army.mil
(links to the Air Force, Navy, and Marine library websites in Europe are found below.)
1. Click on "Catalog."
2. Click on WWW Connection
3. Click on the American flag.
4. Each student will have to log in by entering his or her library card number and the first four letters of his or her last name. (Those who don't have a card can log in as a guest.)
5. Click on "Complete Collection."
6. Now users are ready to find a specific book. A student enrolled in Hist. 156 might be interested in writing a paper on American slavery. The course textbook, The Enduring Vision (Vol. 1), cites a book on slavery at the end of Chapter 3. The book is by Ira Berlin and is entitled Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.
7. Type Ira Berlin into the library Search box. Also change the box on the right to "author." It is better to search for the author than a specific title since authors often write several books on the same topic.
8. Sure enough, the army has several titles by Berlin, including the one we originally sought.
9. Now, click the orange box "Full Record."
10. This tells you what army libraries currently hold Berlin's book, and it tells whether the book is checked in or out.
11. A student might be lucky and find the book at a nearby army library. If not, students can contact their own library and have the book sent through interlibrary loan. It takes from 1 to 2 weeks before the book will arrive. For those who are interested, the Ira Berlin book is at Schweinfurt, Vilsek, and Stuttgart
As you can guess, the military won't have every book listed in text bibliographies. Still, students should not neglect exploring the military libraries for materials.
I've never used the Air Force and Navy libraries, but here are the site links that will take students to these two online library systems.
Air Force: http://usafelibraries.org/
Navy: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/staff/faculty/fll/index.html#OL
The Marines also have a general search engine for their various worldwide community libraries. It can be used for some of the Asian Division libraries.
Marines: http://library.usmc-mccs.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/0/0/49?user_id=WEBSERVER