A library catalog is the complete inventory of the information resources held in a library collection.
Library catalogs list books, e-books, videos, e-resources, periodical subscriptions (but not the articles contained in periodicals), government documents, maps, and more.
When analyzing a primary source document, you may want to locate it in its original context. Where did it come from?
Does your source cite its source?
If it came from a book, check the Murphy Library Catalog by title is usually a pretty easy way to see if we have the book.
If Murphy Library doesn't have the book, perhaps it is held elsewhere in the UW System. You can use Search@UW to search for books held in libraries across the UW System (including UW-Madison, a very large research library).
Once you have the cited book in hand, have you found the original source? Or, have you found a book that contains a reprint of the original? Have you found a translation of the original? Might other translations of the same original document exist?
You can also try shortcutting the process. Your primary source may be available in a "collected work" available through Murphy Library. You can try a catalog search for the writer's name combined with a term like "sources" or "letters" or "works" or "correspondence". Example: strozzi letters
You can remove the "books" limiter to see other types of materials such as scores and streaming videos.
You can refine and narrow the results list in several additional ways, including