Research Assistance
Need help with your research?
Stop by or make an appointment with SEAM, now located at the Just Ask desk on the first floor of the Main Library.
Reach out to staff at the desk directly via online chat, text message or email!
Browse our Frequently Asked Questions!
Schedule an appointment for more in depth assistance!
Find your subject liaison librarian for deep dives!
About
You can find:
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Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles, journals, and books in the humanities and social sciences
Project MUSE provides access to scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences, including full-text to journals and books from university presses and scholarly societies. MUSE is a not-for-profit collaboration between libraries and scholarly publishers.
Need help?
Do you need some help with library research? Drop by or make an appointment The SEAM by clicking on the logo! Located on the 1st Floor at the Just Ask Desk, we're open Sunday - Thursday, 5-9 p.m. We specialize in Rhetoric and ESL Writing class assignments.
Research help is also available on the 1st floor of the Main Library near the Service Desk, M-F, 9 a.m - 5 p.m.
Search Tips
If you have a general idea of the subject of your research, but don't have a specific topic idea just yet, "Browse" is the option for you. Hovering over the orange browse button next to the search box will make this drop down menu appear, showing popular topics that MUSE covers in which to start your search.
However, these are not all of the topics! Clicking on the orange browse button will bring you to a full, more detailed list. Selecting a subject from the Browse list will pull up a list of results (books, journals, etc.) that have all been categorized as the subject you selected. If you just want to browse the scholarship in a particular subject or topic, this is a good way to do it.
You may not have access to everything in your Browse results, list, however. Look for the small colored icons on the right side of a result in your results list. If the University of Iowa has access to a particular result, a green circle with a white check will appear next to that result. A red circle with a lock means that you can read part of the result, but not all.
Project MUSE's Advanced Search is fairly easy to use. Several search boxes allow you to search through the content of articles and books (this is the basic search default), through titles, for specific authors and publishers, or a combination of those search criteria. The second drop down menu allows you to specify whether you want the database to search for all of the terms (like a Boolean AND search), any of the terms (like a Boolean OR search), or none of the terms (like using the Boolean NOT in a search). You can get to the the Advanced Search by clicking on the white hyperlink that appears above the orange search button on any page.