Skip to Main Content

American Indian Studies

AIS guide including languages and statistics.

Journals and Databases

Can't find full text?

Click the Find It! button by the article to get it elsewhere, or to order it.

Search Strategies

Many Terms Identify American Indians

When searching for articles and books, use different combinations of these terms to find the most sources:

  • American Indian
  • Native American
  • Native People
  • Indians of North America (the official term used in our catalog)
  • First Nations (term for the indigenous peoples of Canada)

Search Many Variants at the Same Time

You can use quotations marks (" ") to hold the concepts together (so you don't get "Indian Americans" instead), and use OR to find articles that match any of the various terms. For example, create a search like:

"American Indian" OR "Native American"

In the next boxes put your topic keywords: culture, identity, treaties, education, etc.

Also consider adding locations of interest, such as Great Plains or Minnesota.


Tribe Name Variations
Variant Spellings for Ojibwa
  • Ojibway
  • Ojibwe
  • Ojibwah
  • Chippewa
  • Chippeway
  • Chepeway
  • Anishinabe
  • ...and more.

Searching by tribe is also important, especially if your topic is tribe specific. As tribes often have variant spellings or use entirely different terms, account for this in your search:

Ojibwa or Chippewa or Anishinabe

Using an asterisk * will truncate, or stem, your keyword, including everything after it:

  • Ojibw* captures Ojibway, Ojibwe, and Ojibwah
  • Chippewa* captures Chippewa and Chippeway

Websites

Books

The books below are useful for starting your research, whether getting topic ideas or finding general overviews.

Print reference books can be found in the Reference Section, near the Learning Commons on the first level of the library.