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Recreation, Park & Tourism Administration: Books

Department Research Guides identify and define standard information retrieval tools for a specific department. Each guide was created and is maintained by the library liaison for that department. We encourage you to recommend resources for the guides.

Subject Headings Defined

Subject headings are a controlled vocabulary. A single term or phrase is determined by an authority (Library Congress or a database vendor) to describe a subject. For example, try searching for the subject "roaring twenties" in West-Cat and see what you get.

Sample Subject Headings

  • amusement parks
  • evaluation research (social action programs)
  • leisure
  • leisure--evaluation
  • leisure--research
  • leisure--management--evaluation
  • leisure--economic aspects--evaluation
  • leisure--planning
  • leisure industry
  • national parks and reserves
  • parks
  • recreation--evaluation
  • recreation--management
  • recreation research
  • recreation leadership
  • tort liability of parks

WestCat

WestCat
An online catalog of the University Libraries’ books, periodicals and other library materials. Searchable from the library homepage (http://www.wiu.edu/libraries). If WestCat does not have what you need, search I-Share, a catalog of 76 libraries, mostly academic, in Illinois. WestCat, I-Share, and WorldCat all use Library of Congress Subject Headings.
 

I-Share
I-Share has changed. To use I-Share, create an account. Though a pain at first, having an account will make the book borrowing process much easier than in the past.

WorldCat

WorldCat
One of the databases available from FirstSearch. Bibliographic records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century. Includes 52 million bibliographic records. If you learn how to use this tool, you will be able to tap into a huge amount of bibliographic information, including many historical documents. Use the Library of Congress Subject Headings to refine searches. To find primary sources, use the subject headings "sources." WorldCat has its own ILL function that works in conjuction with ILLiad. Very easy to initiate a request.

Google Books

Consider using Google Books to find the full text of books published years ago.