A quick scan of relevant books can help generate ideas and provide context and background for a topic. A useful strategy is to identify one or two books relevant to your topic, find the call numbers, and then browse the library’s bookshelves around those books. See the Research Strategies module for more information on how to identify relevant books.
When browsing books, an effective and efficient way to generate ideas and get clarification on what the book will cover is to scan the tables of contents, skim the introductory chapters and check the indices for key terms that you are interested in investigating.