Indigenous Treaties

1) For articles & databases at UBC: 

• Indexes and databases contains articles from scholarly journals, popular magazines, newspapers, conference proceedings, etc., and in some cases, include chapters of books

2) Search Summon: a general starting point to find the majority of UBC Library's collections. 

• Summon Tutorial
• For books, e-books, scholarly journals and articles, newspaper articles, dissertations and theses, videos, images, maps, manuscripts, music scores, digitized items and more

Searching within databases can be more time consuming than using Summon, but there are advantages to this research strategy: 

• Databases are usually limited by academic discipline, which means you will retrieve fewer results but they may be more relevant.
• Databases are highly structured, which means you can perform complex searches using controlled vocabulary.

 For a comprehensive list, see the Articles & Databases page of our First Nations and Indigenous Studies research guide.

Each database may have their own way and limitations of searching within the database. Some may use "And," "Or," quotation marks and other search strategies listed on the books & media tab, but some may not. If you are not getting the results you expected within a database, make sure the search is worded the way the database works. 

TIP: Searching databases with the keywords recommended in this research guide is a good starting strategy. However, be aware that some databases may use different terminology. When you find a relevant article, check the subject headings and article description for terminology that could be useful in a new keyword search.

Step 1:

Use Simple Keywords:

• "First Nations"
• Aboriginal
• Indigenous
• "Indians of North America"

For more information on terminology please see Indigenous Foundations. 

Step 2:

Use the Simple Keywords above with the following techniques to narrow or broaden your search:

a) Truncate: allows you to search for a keyword and variations in spelling of that word.

• Example: educate, education, educational
• To truncate:
  • Summon: educat*
  • Catalogue: educat?

b) Boolean: allows you to connect multiple keywords to broaden or narrow your search.

• Example: Aboriginal AND Treaty (this would narrow your search)
• Example: Aboriginal OR Treaty (this would broaden your search)
• Example: Aboriginal NOT Treaty (this would narrow your search)

For more information on Truncating and Boolean searches click here. 

c) Phrase: allows you to search phrases instead of keywords.

• Example: "First Nations" rather than First and Nation
• Example: "Public Education" rather than Public and Education