HISTORY RESEARCH GUIDE

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REFERENCE

Printed Sources

The following is a list of reference sources available in the Reference Room.

  • Boyer, Paul S., and Melvyn Dubofsky, eds. The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
    Ref E174.O94
  • Cook, Bernard A., ed. Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2001.
    Ref D1051.E873
  • Gilbert, Mark, and K. Robert Nilsson. Historical Dictionary of Modern Italy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1999.
    Ref DG555.G53

  • Goodwin, A., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
    Ref D208.N4

  • McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
    Ref D117.N48

  • Moliterno, Gino, ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture. London: Routledge, 2000.
    Ref DG450.E53

  • Morris, Richard B., and Jeffrey B. Morris, eds. Encyclopedia of American History. 7th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
    Ref E174.5.E52

  • Trinkle, Dennis A, and Scott A Merriman, eds. The History Highway: A 21st Century Guide to Internet Resources. 4th ed. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006.
    Ref D16.117.H55

  • Vernoff, Edward, and Rima Shore. The Penguin International Dictionary of Contemporary Biography: From 1900 to the Present. Rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin Reference, 2001.
    Ref CT103.V39

On-line Sources:

Here you can find a list of pertinent on-line reference sources:

  • Encyclopedia Britannica gives access to basic reference information.

  • Oxford Reference Online contains dictionaries and other quick reference sources, including quotations, maps, timelines, and illustrations. It also contains subject specific sources, such as dictionaries and a companions to history.

    Note: the links mentioned above work only when you are on-campus. To use these resources from off-campus, start from the databases webpage

 

BOOK SEARCHING

Most of the books on history can be found on the shelves under sections C, D, E and F in the Library of Congress Classification System. In particular, C is the section where all the auxiliary sciences of history are gathered (archaeology, genealogy, biology, and so on). Section D is devoted to history in general and to the history of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. More specifically, the DG section is the one you refer to if you are focusing on Italy (and ancient Italy). Sections E and F focus on the history of the Americas. Keep in mind, however, that history books can be found in other sections as well (B for intellectual history, H for social history, J for political history, and Q for history of science).

The Library catalog allows different kind of searches, including Subject Keyword and Subject Browse. A Subject Keyword search will retrieve all the subject strings containing the word you searched for. A Subject Browse search will lead to the controlled subject headings list. Determining which "controlled" subject headings are established for aspects of a topic is an important step in finding relevant material. You may want to browse on the broader subject (e.g. history) to find out what’s available in the Library, or you can run a Subject Keyword search using History as a search term.

Some examples of official subject headings and heading patterns are listed below:

 

JOURNALS

Printed Editions

The Library subscribes to the following print journals on History:

Electronic Collections

A large collection of electronic journals is available through library databases, such as JSTOR and EBSCO (Academic Search Premier).

Listed below are some of the most important full-text titles, directly accessible through Journals, A to Z :

 

PRIMARY SOURCES

Primary sources are documents either originally created at the time historical events occurred, or created at a later date in the form of memoirs. They are records of events without any interpretation or commentary and they can include letters, diaries, newspapers, interviews, photographs, video or audio recordings, documents produced by government agencies, and sets of data not yet interpreted. Primary sources serve as the necessary raw material to be used in historical research.

A wide variety of digitized primary sources is available through the Internet. Some examples are listed below:

  • Internet History Sourcebooks
    The web site provides copy-permitted primary sources and links to other Internet resources containing similar documents.

  • American Memory from the Library of Congress
    Numerous primary documents are available through this web page maintained by the Library of Congress. There are different collections, many of which relate to the American Civil War.

  • National Archives and Records Administrations
    The NARA web site contains many original digitized documents that are important in the study of American history.

  • The Avalon Project
    The project, developed by Yale University, collects legal, political, and historical documents from the earliest years of the United States to the present.

  • History of Italy - Primary Documents
    Selection of web sites and primary sources related to the history of Italy.

  • Project Gutenberg
    One of the largest collections of free online books, Project Gutenberg provides digital versions of classic works in world history and literature

 

HISTORY ON THE WEB

Last updated: 22-4-2009