1.  Consult "Potential Sources for Research Assignment" (on Moodle).  This lists many literary anthologies (short stories, plays, poems) as well as collections of music, humor and the visual arts.

2.  Consult Oxford Companion to African American Literature (ref PS 153 .N5 O96 1997) and Oxford African American Studies Center, skimming the essays on various topics for ideas.

3.  Search the 5 College Library Catalog for:

WRITTEN TEXTS:

Examples of "Subject Begins With" searches for locating literary anthologies:

• African Americans - Literary collections
• African American women - Literary collections
• Blacks - Literary collections [includes works by blacks in other countries]
• Women, Black - Literary collections [includes works by black women in other countries]

You can also try to locate "thematic" anthologies; for example, for anthologies on family/families, containing works by African American authors, try this keyword search: famil* and literary collections and african american*

For anthologies on the civil rights movement, try this search: civil rights and literary collections [Note that this search would bring up writings by all authors, not just African American authors.]

Note that using "literary collections" will limit your search to literary works (poems, plays, short stories, etc.) There is no comparable subject search for non-fiction collections, but here's an example of a keyword search that will work fairly well: civil rights and anthology

VISUAL TEXTS:

To search for visual texts, use a keyword search and try these searches:

• african american artists and exhibitions
• african american photographers and exhibitions
• harlem renaissance and exhibitions
• african americans and portrait photography

SOUND TEXTS:

To search for recordings, use the advanced search, look for a genre (example: blues), specific song title, or performer, then limit to format (CDs) and location (SC Josten Library). Here's an example of a search for blues CDs.  Note that Josten Library has a fabulous, huge collection of CDs.

Smith also subscribes to several streaming music collections - see the Finding Music box to the left.