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Books are one of the best systems that humans have ever developed for storing and conveying information; they have important advantages as information sources and are often the best place to start your research. Since books have been the primary tools for sharing and storing ideas throughout human history (for example, a surviving part of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, written on papyrus, dates from the sixteenth century B.C.E.), many of today’s books contain thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge. In addition, many books are written by people with extensive expertise in their subject—though of course you should always check each author’s credentials using the four criteria described earlier.

Books are longer than most other information resources and thus are likely to provide more in-depth information on your topic. Books typically offer synthetic thinking on your topic, because authors combine information from diverse sources along with their own ideas and critical judgments. Additionally, most books—especially scholarly books—are vetted before publication. Both the publisher and other experts in the field may review and edit content to ensure a book’s credibility.

To find books related to your topic, start by searching your library’s electronic catalog by subject. Such catalogs are usually available online, allowing remote access; you can also search online catalogs by author name and book title. After entering your search terms, you’ll see a list of links specifying relevant book titles. By clicking on these links, you can find bibliographic information as well as details on where in the library the books are located and whether certain titles have been checked out or are available in the stacks.

Another way to check books out from the library is to use your digital e-reader. After you log into the library’s site and check the e-book out remotely, it should appear in your e-reader’s list and remain there for the checkout period. Checking out e-books combines the quality of book evidence with the ease of an online search.

Finally, here’s a tip followed by some expert library users. After you find some books on your topic in a library’s catalog, go into the library stacks and locate the books you have identified. But don’t just pull the books you found and leave; instead, browse through some of the books nearby. Because libraries organize nonfiction books by topic—usually using the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal systems—the nearby books are likely to have similar coverage but also touch on some different but related areas. These nearby books might point you to aspects of your topic you haven’t yet considered.