To identify and locate books and United States government documents about specific military battles, military operations, areas or countries in which the actions occurred, and information about military strategy, use OneSearch Catalog. From the Rod Library Web page click on Advanced Search, then click the Books/Media radio button. To ensure that you use appropriate subject terms when you search Books/Media, use the Library of Congress Subject Headings thesaurus which is accessible electronically through the Classification Web (choose the LC Subject Headings option) or in the printed Library of Congress Subject Headings volumes located at Reference Collection Z 695 L696.
In Books/Media to find books about a specific battle, search by the name of the battle, for example,
"Sanananda Campaign"
In Books/Media the name of the geographic area in which the battle occurred is listed first, so you may increase your search results by typing AND between the geographic area and campaign. For example, for the Battle of Gettysburg, try
gettysburg AND battle
For the Gettysburg Campaign try
gettysburg AND campaign
To increase your search results, also use the search pattern of
[name of the war] -- campaigns -- [country where the battle occurred]
For example,
World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Papua New Guinea
You may broaden your search by broadening the geographic area, for example,
World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Pacific Ocean.
Note: World War I is cataloged as World War, 1914-1918 and
World War II is cataloged as World War, 1939-1945.
In Books/Media to find resources examining battle strategy, tactics, doctrine, and policy, try these search terms:
deployment (strategy)
military planning
"military doctrine"
"military policy "
To focus on the United States military, try adding United States, for example
"united states" AND strategy
"united states" AND "military doctrine"
Specific military approaches could be explored, for example,
"siege warfare"
siege AND "world war" AND 1939 -1945
"tank warfare"