HTY 200

Introduction | Reference Sources | Indexes & Databases | Internet Resources | Writing the Paper

Zip Kellogg, Reference Librarian and library liaison to the History Department, Glickman Library, e-mail: zkellogg@usm.maine.edu telephone: 780-4272

I'm glad to meet with you anytime to discuss how the library might best serve your needs.

In this course you'll develop real expertise in using an academic library. You'll get a general overview and orientation to the information age we live in as well as develop an understanding of how to find books, articles, and even how to improve your Internet searching. Moreover, the skills and principles you'll learn in this course will be portable-- that is, they'll apply to any other course you take as well as History 200...talk about bang for your buck!! And these skills will be applicable in virtually any library anyplace. What follows is not a comprehensive list of sources; think of it as a first step...

Reference Sources

Here's just a sampler of a few reference books that you're likely to find useful. There are scores if not hundreds more, too, but these are important ones.

Encyclopedias

For a quick overview of an historical topic. This is just a sampler of encyclopedias; there are many others, too.

Dictionary of American History
Ref E 174 D52 in both Portland (Por) and Gorham (Gor).

The Oxford Companion to American History
Ref E 174 J6 Por

The Reader's Companion to American History
Ref E 174 R43 in Por.

An Encyclopedia of World History
Ref D21 L27 in both Por and Gor.

Biography

Succinct information about a person's life and historical significance.

American National Biography
Ref CT 213 A68 in both Portland (Por) and Gorham (Gor).

Dictionary of American Biography
Ref E 176 D563 in both Por and Gor.

Dictionary of National Biography
(British) Ref DA28 D47 in both Por and Gor.

Biography and Genealogy Master Index
Ref Z 5305 U5 B47 in both Por and Gor.

Who Was Who in America
Ref E 176 W64 in both Por and Gor.

Who Was Who
(British) Ref DA28 W65 in Por.

Maps

To help you understand geography and its significance in history.

Shepherd's Historical Atlas
Ref G 1030 S4 1973 in both Por and Gor.

Atlas of American History
Ref G 1201 S1 J3 in both Por and Gor.

The Times Atlas of American History
Atlas Case G 1030 T54 in both Por and Gor.

Statistics

Numerical data may help you support a point and assist in drawing conclusions.

Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970

Chronologies and Date Books

Who Was When?
Ref Ct 103 D4 in Por and Gor.

Chronology of the Modern World
Ref D11.5 W5 in both Por and Gor.

Chronology of the United States
Ref E 174.5 C63 in Por.

The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events
Ref D11 G78 in both Por and Gor.

Chronology of World History: A Calendar of Principal Events from 3000 B.C. to 1976 A.D.
Ref D11 F75 in Gor.

Miscellaneous

Documents of American History
Ref E173 C66 in both Por and Gor. Contains the major primary documents (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and many others), all together in a single book.

Historic Documents of (year)
Ref E839.5 H57 in Por (1972 to present) and Gor (1972 to 1983).

Annals of American History This online index provides access to thousands of source documents in U.S. history.

Indexes & Databases

These online indexes, databases,and catalogs will help you locate articles, books, and theses relevant to your topic:

URSUS is the University of Maine System's catalog for finding books. It can be searched by subject, keyword, author, title, etc. and helps you locate books in about a dozen libraries in Maine. When those books are in another library you may request that they be sent to your library.

WorldCat lists many millions of books and other materials. It is similar to, but much larger than URSUS. Most of the items listed in WorldCat will need to be ordered through Interlibrary Loan (4-7 days average time to obtain them).

Historical Abstracts
(covering 1450 A.D. to the present). An index to history topics for all the world except the U.S. and Canada.

America: History & Life
An index covering all aspects of US and Canadian history.

Digital Dissertations Index to dissertations from 1861 to the present, representing the work of authors from over 1,000 North American graduate schools and European universities. Includes the 350-word abstracts written by the author for those dissertations published after 1979.

ProQuest Newspapers An index to approximately the past decade of news articles. Numerous prominent newspapers are indexed, among those, the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times.

Academic Search Premier A general purpose index useful for finding current articles on almost any subject. To access this system you'll be prompted to type in your name and library bar code number, if you are working on an off campus computer.

Internet Resources

Net searching can be tricky. It's not terribly useful if a search engine tells you it found 300,000 items, especially if what you really need is 5-10 relevant items. It pays to improve your net searching as the results you get will be better. A few tricks can greatly improve your results...for example, it can be very useful to limit the scope of your search by "domain" to those sites which originate at educational institutions. On another note, there is no "authority control" on the Internet (in other words anyone can put things on the net and you may have a hard time telling truth from fiction). In choosing Internet resources it is imperative to evaluate the authenticity of the source. Thinking Critically about Discipline-Based World Wide Web Resources (UCLA College Library) provides excellent evaluation criteria. The following selected resources have been chosen because of authenticity and comprehensiveness of coverage.

sources of information (books, articles, maps, government sources, interviews, web sources, etc.).

Yahoo's History Directory links to many sources of information on topics in history.

The World Wide Web Virtual Library provides and extensive index of resources for historians.

The Internet Scout directs you to internet sites by topic. History and scores of other related topics are included.

Maine Memory an online collection of digitized materials for the student of Maine history.

American Memory a massive collection of digitized collections on a broad range of topics. This is a gold mine for the history student.

Writing the Paper

The Marius and Page textbook A Short Guide to Writing About History, gives superb advice not only for writing about history, but also about doing research and evaluating your sources of information for plausibility and trustworthiness. Furthermore, it gives excellent examples of documenting your sources, compiling bibliographies, and even a sample term paper. This book will prove invaluable in acquainting you with methods of doing research and makes an excellent companion to the work you'll be doing in the library.

created by: Zip Kellogg
last updated: Sept. 6, 2007