Simple Google searches can often get you all the background information you need, but think about using some of Google's special features if you need to get particular perspectives or treatments of your topic.
Take a look at the example below to see the different results the come up when you use Google, Google Advanced, Google Scholar, and Google Books.
And note - with Google books, the full text of a book, or much of it, is often there for you to read online. This can be invaluable when you need book resources and you don't have time to get to the library to find the book on the shelf. See below for more!
When you perform a search in Google Books, you can usually do a second search in the full text of the books you retrieved. In the example below, the search
"freedom of religion in the united states"
retrieved the book, Constitutional debates on freedom of religion: a documentary history, by John J. Patrick and Gerald P. Long. Doing a search for "Roger Williams" in that book retrieved the following results. Give it a try!
Google Books is a tool for searching the full text of books. If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given us permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy.
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. Only some of the articles are available in full text. Google Scholar also provides free access to legal cases. Coverage includes U.S. state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, U.S. federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1791. Interlibrary loan is available for journals and documents that HC library does not own. Ask a librarian for assistance.