Use the Libraries' ADVANCED SEARCH to find books on your paper topic.  You can find both primary documents and secondary sources through Library Search.  Just follow the suggestions in the search tips.

When looking for books by topic, enter your keyword(s) into the search boxes. Break up your topic using different keywords, putting them on separate lines.

SEARCH TIP:  If you are using a phrase in your search, be sure and put it in quotation marks, e.g., "african americans"

SEARCH TIP:     Use the asterisk  *  as a wild card to pick up variant endings of words, e.g., environment* will pick up environment, environments, environmental, etc.

SEARCH TIP:  To find PRIMARY DOCUMENTS, use one of the boxes in the Advanced Search to include keywords such as: sources OR letters OR diaries OR "personal narratives" OR "oral history" OR correspondence OR speeches.

SEARCH TIP:  Be sure and do an author search in Library Search to see if the person/people that are prominent in the topic you are researching authored any materials.  Books written by people who participated in an event are considered primary documents.  For example, if you are studying the women's movement in the 19th century, do an author search on Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony.

The WMU Libraries owns a sizable collection of government documents.  ProQuest Congressional contains legislative information and House and Senate hearings going back to the founding of the nation.

Visit the Subject Guide to Government Documents site written by government documents specialist, Megan Brown, to get an overview of what kind of information we have available for you.