Research Assistant Guide

Temple University Libraries have a wealth of materials. Access the catalog from the Libraries homepage. Searches from the unified search bar are across all media types, so be aware of the format when choosing which results to explore - you want to end up with the book you need, not an article about it.

Details on searching for specific materials is below.

• Books
  From the Temple University Libraries homepage, select the Books & Media button. You can search using the unified search bar or click on the advanced search option to search by title, author, subject, and other fields, as well as to narrow your search by date and other parameters.

After your initial search, you can refine your results by using the filter options on the left side of the search results page.

• Journals and articles
  From the Temple University Libraries homepage, select the Articles button to reach the Articles search page. The catalog also offers a Journals search page. Both have advanced search options. Warning: The advanced search is best for author and title searches. Because of indexing, a subject search here likely will NOT give you all the articles Temple has on that topic; instead, identify databases that may contain article of interest (see Databases, below) and search within the database.

For more advanced help on searching journals and articles, click on the Article Finding tab.

• Databases
  From the Temple University Libraries homepage, select the Databases button to reach the Databases search page. If you're not familiar with the databases available for a given subject, check the subject database lists. 

• News
  To find a newspaper, type the newspaper’s name in the library unified search bar and look under the Journal and Database results. Most newspapers are available in text-only databases. If you need to find an article with images, check to see if it is on PressReader.

For additional help, see the Charles Library Find Newspapers research guide.

Research Assistants may check out materials from the law library on behalf of their faculty member, if the faculty member designates the R.A. as an authorized proxy. The faculty member should email the R.A.'s name to facserv@temple.edu, and we will add them to the faculty member's library record as an authorized proxy.