LibGuides: Philosophy: Scholarly Books & Reviews

Omni All-in-One Search Box

Use the search box below to start a search in Omni:

The All in One Search Box

Omni Searching Books/E-Books

Omni, available via the library home page, is the new search tool shared by 18 Ontario university libraries. With a single search you can find a variety of resources held at York University Libraries and the other Omni partner libraries.

To find books or e-books follow these steps:

Step 1: Apply the Relevant Search Scope

Omni can be used to search for books or e-books in three different domains, equivalent to search scopes:

York Libraries
York Libraries + Omni Libraries (default search mode)
Course reserves

In general we advise that you choose the first option. If you cannot find what you need this way, choosing the second option will find more books and e-books, which may be available using inter-library loan options linked from system records.

Step 2: Conduct your search

Results are automatically sorted by relevance including:

Frequency of matching search words
A value score (query words in author, title, subject, plus date)
Proximity of search words to one another

If you sort by the newest date, you lose the relevance ranking.

Step 3: Avail of the Search Filters and limit to Books & E-Books under Resource Type

These search filters appear once results load along the left-side of the screen

Use our Omni Guide to learn more about effective search strategies in Omni. Key terms to know are Search Scope, Facet, Boolean, Truncation, Wildcards, and Limits.

Google Books

Google Books allows researchers to search and preview the content of recently published scholarly (and non-scholarly) books. It is often a good source to consult when you can't find anything through a conventional library catalogue search. After you have found a few useful titles here, and previewed the selected content Google provides, search the library catalogue above to see if York owns the book.

e-Book Collections

ACLS Humanities e-Book Collection
A collection of 3,000 scholarly books made available by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in collaboration with universities, libraries, and academic publishers.
Oxford Scholarship Online
Provides access to thousands of scholarly books published by Oxford University Press. York University has access to selected parts of the collections in classical studies, history, literature, philosophy, and religion.
E-Books at Scholars Portal
Provides access to 40,000 current titles from a wide variety of academic and trade publishers as well as 200,000 public domain titles through the Internet Archive.

Book Reviews

Good book reviews do more than evaluate the content of a particular title. They also situate books in the wider field by providing an overview of how the author builds on previous scholarship. If you are feeling overwhelmed, a good book review can help you find your bearings as it maps out the scholarly conversation in a particular field.

Philosophy in Review
PIR is an open access, specialist book review journal in philosophy, published six times a year. It covers all areas of and approaches to philosophy.
Book Review Digest Retrospective
Cites and excerpts reviews of current English-language fiction and nonfiction books. The index does not include reviews of textbooks, government publications, and technical books in law and the sciences. Coverage of scholarly material is weak. The digest covers approximately 100 popular periodicals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Coverage is 1905 - 1982.
Book Review Index Plus
This index includes citations from journals published in a variety of academic disciplines including the social sciences, humanities, sciences and fine arts. Over 500 popular, academic, and professional periodicals are included. The content is primarily from the United States, but there is limited coverage of Canadian and British publications as well. Citations are listed under author name. Abstracts are not provided. Coverage is from 1965 to the present.
Canadian Book Review Annual
A collection of authoritative reviews of English-language trade, scholarly, and reference books published in Canada each year.

Philosophy in Review

Like a title you see here? Send a purchase request to me at sacassin@yorku.ca

Worldcat

WorldCat
A union list of major research and public library catalogues from 45 countries around the world. Containing more than 45 million bibliographic records, Worldcat is the largest catalogue of research material in existence. Includes records and holdings information for books, periodicals, scores, videos, maps, selected manuscript and archival materials, recordings, and selected websites. Extremely useful for compiling a comprehensive literature review.