Go to our Reference Shelves and browse around the call numbers PN1993 – PN 1999 [Motion Pictures]. Below are some specific reference sources you may find helpful:

The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States
Award Winning Films : A Viewer's Reference to 2700 Acclaimed Motion Pictures  
Film : An International History of the Medium
The Film Encyclopedia
The Oxford Guide to Film Studies

To get started, you might try a keyword search in OASys. Be sure to notice the subject headings for the best items on your topic. Click on those headings to get more resources. Need more? Click over to LINK+ and continue your searching there. Need even more? WorldCat includes over 54 million entries from more than 45,000 libraries. You may place Interlibrary Loan requests. (Slower than LINK+)

Suggested Keyword Searches for this Course

Keywords will differ depending on the focus of your research. Here are some obvious examples.
 

keyword: detective films
keyword: detective fiction
keyword: mystery films
keyword: film AND analys*

Tips:
Remember to be flexible with your terminology and try several different searches.
Use synonyms.
Truncate terms to retrieve records that mention all variations of the word in question.
To narrow search results, limit your search to certain locations [Book Stacks, Special Coll] or to specific Material Types [Elect. Resource, Text (Book)].
Caution: In a library catalog, keywords are usually found in the Notes, Title, and Subject Headings fields. Therefore, keyword searches may produce huge results or results that include the keyword(s) but be irrelevant to your topic.

Suggested Subject Headings for this Course

Motion Pictures
Detective and Mystery Films
Detective and Mystery Plays 
Detective and Mystery Stories
Holmes, Sherlock (Or any fictional character's name) 

Advanced searches, combining subject headings with key words or phrases, yield a manageable number of targeted results. Here are a few examples:
[Subject] motion pictures OR films AND [Subject] detective Limited to: Location "Clapp Library General Book Collection"
[Subject] (film AND detective) Limited to: Material Type "TEXT (BOOK)"
[Subject] motion pictures AND [Any] (gender OR race)

For more assistance with searching for books, please see Finding Books.

Selected Library Research Databases for CSP 69: 

Arts & Humanities Citation Index (FirstSearch)
Find journal articles in the arts and humanities. Offers citations with lists of articles cited. Can be used to find citing articles.

MLA Bibliography (First Search)
Index to scholarly materials published worldwide in literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore.

Literature Online
An online library of more than 350,000 full-text works of English and American poetry, drama, and prose. Also includes 175 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.

Humanities Full Text (WilsonWeb)
Find citations, abstracts, and full-text for literature on archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, journalism, linguistics, music, the performing arts, philosophy, religion, world history and world literature.

If you are pursuing a multi-disciplinary approach, be sure to look at the wide range of databases available here at Oxy. DATABASES by Topic.

For more assistance with searching our databases, please see Finding Articles.

Some Criteria for Evaluating Information

Margaret Herrick Library
www.oscars.org/mhl/index.html

Crime Fiction Canada
www.brocku.ca/crimefictioncanada/index.php

Public Moving Image Archives and Research Center
www.loc.gov/film/arch.html  

Try a different search engine or a subject directory found on our Public Internet Search Tools page. For example, go to the Librarian's Index to the Internet, and try this search: detective films.

 For more assistance with searching for web sites, please see Finding Public Web Pages.

Occidental Library's Special Collections Department. Located on the 3rd floor of the Library.

Occidental Library's Video and DVDs. 

Internet Archive.  Collections include streaming video, audio and text. "Moving Images" sections offers newsreels

UCLA Film & Television Archives. Searchable online catalog to one of the world's largest archives. Study copies of television, newsreels and films can be screened at Powell Library on the UCLA campus.

The Pauley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television and Radio). The library at the Beverly Hills location offers 140,000 programs. Searchable catalog and viewing is on-site only. Hours are limited for research. 

We welcome your Comments and Suggestions.

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