HIST 499: Travelers in Colonial Southeast Asia

What is a subject heading? 

Subject headings are terms or phrases that that classify and organize library materials. They essentially identify materials that cover the same subjects and pull them together under one umbrella. Bortz Library, like most academic libraries, uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) classification system to organize its collections.

Listed below are just a few of the subject headings related to Southeast Asian history and colonialism. Each subject heading is hyperlinked, you can click on the heading to be taken directly to the library's catalog results.    

• Southeast Asia - Description and Travel
• Southeast Asia - History
• British - Burma
• Burma - Description and Travel
• Burma - History - 1824-1948
• Burma - History - 19th Century
• Cambodia - Description and Travel
• Cambodia - History - 1863-1953

Not finding what you need here? Test out additional search terms in the Library Catalog or come to the Research Desk for help.

1. Brainstorm potential search terms before you start your research. An inevitable part of research is plugging in search terms that don't retrieve the results that you want. Having a bank of search terms will help you recover from these moments quickly!
2. When brainstorming search terms, try to think of different ways to describe the same thing. For example, although they're similar words that may describe the same time period, "colonial" and "colonialism" will retrieve different results in a catalog search. Try plugging both in and see what results you get. 
3. Try to think of both broad and narrow search terms. Searching just for "colonialism" in the catalog will retrieve a lot of results; searching for "colonialism southeast asia" will narrow you search down dramatically.
4. Use the search filters on the results page to narrow your results. You can narrow by publication date, subject, author and more.
5. Avoid phrase searching. When searching in the library catalog, try to avoid entering full phrases like "how colonialism impacted southeast asia." Focus on the key elements of your search - in this case, "colonialism" and "southeast asia" - and just enter those terms.