When you take a course, your professor expects you to find, read and cite academic / scholarly sources, which usually consist of books and articles that have been: 1) written and published by experts of a field (like your professor) as a result of in-depth academic research; and, 2) usually peer-reviewed or refereed , meaning the contents, arguments and conclusions have been checked and reviewed by other experts in the same field  (namely, 'peers') for accuracy and quality before publication. 

Typically, one would use an academic library, like the University of Toronto Libraries, as the gateway to searching and accessing such scholarly materials. Generally speaking, an academic library system usually presents different discovery tools built for different types of resources. For example, one would use:

• the library catalogue, to look for books and periodicals; and
• various databases, to look for scholarly articles. 

In this section, we shall take a quick look at the catalogue.

If you are new to a topic, it is not a bad idea to start your exploration by consulting some reference sources ---- these often come in the forms of (subject-specific) encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries and so on, which can provide readers with a quick panoramic view, some basic facts and related literature about a topic. 

Below is a list of some reference sources that might be of interest to this course:

• Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film [e-resource]
• A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film [e-resource]
• The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film [e-resource]
• Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film [e-resource]​​

• Oxford Bibliographies - Cinema and Media Studies - Chinese Cinema [e-resource]
• Oxford Bibliographies - Cinema and Media Studies - Documentary Film [e-resource] 
• Oxford Bibliographies - Cinema and Media Studies - Ethnographic Film [e-resource] 
• Oxford Bibliographies - Chinese Studies - Chinese Language Film [e-resource] 
• Oxford Bibliographies - Chinese Studies - Film in Taiwan [e-resource] 
• Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas [e-resource]
• Routledge Handbook of Chinese Culture and Society [e-resource]  
• Encyclopedia of Chinese Film [e-resource]

The catalogue is the search tool to look for books (print and electronic) held by the UofT libraries. It has multiple search modes, namely, quick search, advanced search, browse search, and Boolean search, which are combined with many more options to limit and refine search results by various facets (search limiters). 

An experienced user usually takes advantage of these different modes and options to methodologically drive the searching step by step towards results that he/she desires.

Basic Search:

That said, the system works very well with simple, straightforward keyword inquiries too.  In our case, you can try the following steps and observe how the catalogue responds:

1. go to the "Catalogue", type "Chinese documentary" in the search box and run the search --- the list will present 661 results; 
   
   
2. next, in the left-side bar under the category of "Format", find and click the facet of "Books"  -- this will effectively limit the results to 182 print and electronic books; 
    
3. then, find and check the "Online" box in the left-side bar --- this will narrow the results to a list of 56 ebooks, all available online once you log iin by your UTORid information.  

Likewise, you can try and search for other relevant keywords, such as Wu Wenguang, Caochangdi, Chinese ethnographic films, Chinese cinema, and so on. 

One thing to note, though, is that the current UofT catalogue does not work very well with searches using Chinese characters. As a result, the library encourages you to use pinyin romanizations for Chinese personal and geographical names.  For a more detailed explanation, please refer to this link: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/chinaresources/ChineseBooks   

A more sophisticated discovery strategy involves searching books by "subject headings" --  these are highly systematized, or "controlled", terms (as opposed to natural language) used by librarians to describe the contents of a library book. In the catalogue record of a book, such special headings or terms can be found in the "Subjects" field, as is shown below: 

...... and, you can ask the catalogue to do search based on subject terms chosen by you:

If you know any subject terms pertinent to your interest, the benefit of doing "subject" search is obvious  --- it can drastically boost relevancy of search results. For this course, you may want to search the following (combinations of) subject terms (click to see search results): 

• subject: independent films + subject: China

• subject: documentary films + subject: China  (also, limited to books)
• subject: documentary films + subject: Taiwan 
• subject: independent filmmakers
• subject:  motion pictures in ethnology
• subject: visual anthropology   
• subject: motion pictures + subject: social aspects + subject: China
• subject: environmentalism + subject: motion pictures + subject: China
• subject: cities + subject: motion pictures + subject: China 
• subject: film festivals + subject: China

The above are just some examples, and you are certainly welcome to experiment with your choice(s) of subject or keyword terms. Also, don't forget that you always have the option to limit search results to "Online" (listed in the left-side bar) so to quickly narrow the results to e-books. If you have any questions about the catalogue and its funcationalities, feel free to contact Lucy (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca). 

The University of Toronto is now a participant in the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS). This means that during the U of T library closure due to COVID-19, current students and faculty can read digitized versions of more than 2.5 million of the library’s in-copyright print books that have been deposited in the HathiTrust Digital Library. 

How to access the collection: ​

1. Read and agree to the term of use statement (scroll to bottom).
2. From anywhere on the HathiTrust website, click the yellow LOG IN button.
3. Find and select the University of Toronto in the list of partner institutions.
4. Log in with your UTORid and password.
5. When you have logged in, you will be returned to the HathiTrust website, where you can search the HathiTrust collection.
6. In your search results, look for items labeled 'Temporary Access' or 'Access'

Please refer to this page for the University of Toronto Libraries' announcement about HathiTrust. 

Also, refer to "ETAS: Information for Members", for a quick briefing on how the HathiTrust ETAS online book loan works.

In addition, you may also consider using:

• Google Scholar
• Google Books

If you have questions about any above-mentioned databases or how to develop a search strategy, contact Lucy (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca) for assistance.