Catalyst is a simple way to search across the library catalog and nearly a billion articles, videos, reference books and more at once. You can search for articles and books at the same time, across all subjects. 

Start with Catalyst when you are beginning your research, doing interdisciplinary searching, or looking for a specific book or article by title.

The Catalyst search box is front and center on the library homepage.

Searching by subject heading:

Searching by subject gives you very relevant results related to the topic you are searching for.

If you are unsure of what "spirit possession" practice to choose for your research, try conducting a subject search for "spirit possession." You will notice that "spirit possession" is a actual subject heading. Your results will give you the topic of spirit possession across a geographical context and religious context.

From that point, you can add a term like "Africa" to your search, and you will retrieve research related to spirit possession in Africa.

Possible subject searches:

You can further modify these subject searches by adding regions adn names of religions, to retrieve more specific results.

For example: "spirit possession" (subject) and Africa (keyword)

Searching by practicing groups:

You can also search for the topic of spirit possession by searching for the group of individuals known to practice it.

For example: Zar cult, Zebola, Gurage people. Search for these by subject.

You can also search for "folk belief system" as a subject and add a country name below the subject search.

Searching for an individual:

You can also conduct a subject search by author, if you are focusing your research on one thinker. For example: Janice Boddy.