If you need further assistance locating resources, visit the SML Reference
Desk. For help with specific research projects, contact Nancy
M. Godleski, Kaplanoff Librarian for American History and American
Studies.
Related Yale Library Research Workshops
The Yale University Library holds periodic workshops for researchers,
tailored either to general or specific needs. These links will
take you to online materials used in past workshops.
How to Locate Books
A book can be either primary or secondary source, depending upon
things like publication date and viewpoint of the author.
Catalogs
The collections of the Yale University Library are represented in
multiple catalogs. Together, the card catalog, Orbis,
Morris
(the Law Library catalog), Special
Catalogs, Digital
Collections, and the Center
for Research Libraries (CRL) catalog constitute the Yale University
Library catalog.
Eureka
Provides catalog records for books, journals, maps, sound recordings,
musical scores, films, archives, and computer files held in research,
corporate, and public libraries, as well as museums, archives and
historical societies.
Worldcat
Contains over 39 million records from academic, public, special and
national libraries around the world.
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How and When to Look For Scholarly Analysis
Scholarly analysis can usually be found either as a monograph or
an article. Below are important indexes for finding books and articles
related to your topic.
Academic
Search
Provides full text for over 1,530 journals covering the social
sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, and
education.
America:
History and Life
America: History and Life is a bibliographic reference to the
history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Published since 1964, the database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic
entries, covering over 2,000 journals published worldwide. In addition
to covering all key English-language historical journals, America:
History and Life coverage includes selected historical journals
from major countries, state and local history journals, and a targeted
selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities.
Over 90% of the articles included are published in English-language
journals.
In addition to articles, each year America: History and Life includes
approximately 6,000 citations of book and media reviews from a selection
of over one hundred key journals in US and Canadian history and
related fields. The database also includes citations to abstracts
of dissertations published in these areas.
Arts
and Humanities Citation Index (1975-) is an international interdisciplinary
index to the literature of the arts and humanities, indexing the
contents of about 6,100 journals, covering about 1,000 fully and
about 5,100 selectively. Those selectively covered are titles in
the sciences and social sciences indexed by Science Citation Index
and Social Sciences Citation Index, from which articles of possible
interest in the arts and humanities are drawn. Published in three
parts: Citation Index (through which you can find what later articles
have cited earlier books or articles), Source Index (an author index),
and Permuterm Subject Index (which offers keyword access to the
titles of articles). Years of Coverage: 1975-present.
Dissertations
and Theses - Full Text
ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses - Full Text contains more than
2 million entries with information about doctoral dissertations
and master's theses. It is the same database as Dissertation Abstracts,
but with the significant advantage that titles published since 1997
are available in PDF digital format and have 24 page previews available.
Historical
Abstracts
Contains annotated references to books, articles, and dissertations
on the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding
the United States and Canada, which are covered in America:
History and Life).
International
Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP)
Indexes articles in 150 international scholarly and popular Black
studies periodicals.
MLA Bibliography
Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics,
and folklore, excluding book reviews.
AHA Guide to Historical Literature Ed. Mary Beth Norton,
Pamela Gerardi. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 2 v.
The product of over 400 historians. This edition of the Guide presents
and integrated, selective listing of books and articles that most
successfully introduce others to the study of key issues in history.
Works have been chosen for inclusion on the basis of (1) their function
as reliable syntheses or reference works that provide entry to a
field; (2) works that set the standard of excellence in various
fields of history; and (3) major alternative interpretations rpresented
in current scholarly dbate. Conatins nearly 27,000 annotated citations
arrangd in 48 chapters. Each chapter includes a bried introductory
essay summarizing the history and development of that area of historical
inquiry. WIth author and subject indexes and a list of journals.
SML, Reference Z6201 A55 1995
Also at the SML Reference Desk as well as CCL, Reference
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How and When to Look For Magazine Articles
An index reveals the contents of periodicals (magazines, journals,
and newspapers, etc.) Below are important indexes for finding articles
related to your topic, organized by time period.
20th Century | 19th
Century | 18th Century
20th Century
Readers'
Guide Full Text and Readers' Guide Retrospective
Readers' Guide Full Text and Readers' Guide Retrospective
together offer comprehensive indexing and abstracting of some 375
of the most popular general interest periodicals published in the
United States and Canada since 1890, plus the full text of over
120 of those periodicals from 1994 - present. They cover news, current
events, and all subject areas, including business, fashion, politics,
crafts, food, education, sports, history, and science.Contains comprehensive
indexing and abstracting of more than 240 of the most popular general
interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada,
plus the full text of over 120 of those periodicals. Print covers
1890-present.
Academic
Search
Provides full text for over 1,530 journals covering the social
sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, and
education.
Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals.
SML, Reference, Index Case AI3 A23
Indexes magazines not presently indexed in Reader's
Guide Abstracts, including city and regional magazines.
Africabib.org
Africabib is a combination of databases providing access to periodical
and other material on Africa. The two major databases include Africana
Periodical Literature, a bibliography of over 36,000 citations from
300 periodicals, covering the entire range of topics relating to
Africa. The other large database is African Women's Database which,
in addition to including citations pertaining to women in Africa,
includes conference papers, as well as references to theses and
dissertations. A large and detailed bibliography entitled Women
Travelers, Explorers and Missionaries to Africa 1763-2001 can be
found on Africabib.
African
Studies
African Studies is a combination of databases providing access to
multi-disciplinary information on Africa. Included are the catalogs
of the African Studies Center (Leiden), the Africa Institute (Pretoria),
the School of Oriental and African Studies, the Africana Collection
of the University of Natal, and the International Library of African
Music at Rhodes University.
Alternative Press Index (1991-present) and Archive (1969-1990)
The Alternative Press Index and its archive are widely regarded
as the leading guide to the alternative press in North America.
Citations are drawn from roughly 250 alternative, radical, and left
publications, that report and analyze the practices and theories
of cultural, economic, political, and social change. 90% of the
publications indexed in API are unique; you won't find them indexed
in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature or the Social Sciences
Index. Approximately 17,000 new records (some with abstracts) are
added each year. Major topics include: African-American Studies,
ethnic & racial studies, feminism, gay/lesbian studies, community
organizing, ecology, labor studies, social theory, socialism, alternative
organizations, anarchism, prisons, indigenous people's rights, internationalism.
Black Index: Afro-Americana in Selected Periodicals, 1907-1949.
Richard Newman. New York: Garland, 1981.
SML, Reference Z1361 N39 N58 (LC)
Over 1,000 articles taken from over 350 journals published in the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain.
Black
Studies Database
The electronic version of the celebrated Kaiser Index to Black Periodicals,
includes more than 170,000 citations drawn from significant and
influential journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets
and reports relevant to the Black experience from 1948-1986.
International
Index to Black Periodicals
IBP indexes articles in 150 international scholarly and popular
Black studies periodicals. It covers humanities-related disciplines
including art, cultural criticism, economics, education, health,
history, language and literature, law, philosophy, politics, religion,
and sociology. The full text of some recent articles are included.
Covers 1910 to present (varies by periodical title).
A Guide to Negro Periodical Literature. Winston-Salem,
NC, 1941-1946.
SML, Stacks, Yale Classification X413 +G92 Also
in SML, Microform Film S1069
Published Februaury 1941-September 1946. Publication suspended March
1943-February 1946. Continued by Index to Periodical Articles
By and About Negroes.
Index to Black Periodicals. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984-.
SML, Reference, Index case AI3 I563
Included are indexes to African-American periodicals of general
and scholarly interest. They include citations of journal articles,
literary works, and book and live recorded performance reviews.
Previous Titles: Index to Periodical Articles By and About Blacks
(1973-1983) and Index to Periodical Articles By and
About Negroes (1960-1972).
Nation
Digital Archive contains every issue of The Nation from
July 1865 through 1999.
Periodicals
Contents Index
PCI Web is an electronic index to the contents of thousands
of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their
first issues to 1995. Every article is indexed. PCI Web currently
indexes over eleven million joOctober 3, 2006it adds records for more than one million new articles.
It will grow to encompass over 5,000 journals and 20 million individual
articles.
19th Century
Harper's
Magazine Online provides access to the full-text Harper's Magazine.
When complete, it will cover 1850 to the present.
HarpWeek:
The Civil War Era and Reconstruction is a searchable full-text
database of all the pages of Harper's Weekly (1857-1877).
Niles Register is a cumulative index of the Weekly
Register, Niles' Weekly Register, and Niles' National
Register from 1811-1849.
*Located in the SML, CD-ROM Reference Center
The
Nineteenth Century Masterfile contains several electronic indexes
to pre-1920 periodical literature, including Poole's Index to Periodical
Literature (1802-1906). *The print version of Poole's is located
in SML, Reference, Index Case A13 P656 1963
Periodicals
Contents Index
PCI Web is an electronic index to the contents of thousands
of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their
first issues to 1995. Every article is indexed. PCI Web currently
indexes over eleven million journal articles in 3,536 journals.
Every year, it adds records for more than one million new articles.
It will grow to encompass over 5,000 journals and 20 million individual
articles.
18th Century
American
Periodical Series Index
This full-text-/full-image resource contains 1000 magazines published
between 1741 and 1900. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General
Magazine, the first American professional journals, and several
consumer magazines still in publication, such as Vanity Fair,
Harper's, and Ladies' Home Journal. The search interface
allows you to search the complete text, including tables of contents,
by boolean and keyword operators. Articles are linked to the corresponding
page images, downloadable in PDF format.
Periodicals
Contents Index
PCI Web is an electronic index to the contents of thousands
of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their
first issues to 1995. Every article is indexed. PCI Web currently
indexes over eleven million journal articles in 3,536 journals.
Every year, it adds records for more than one million new articles.
It will grow to encompass over 5,000 journals and 20 million individual
articles.
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How to Look for News and Newspapers
First determine the title and date of publication of
the newspaper by using one of these guides. Titles within these guides
are arranged geographically.
History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820.
Brigham, Clarence Saunders. Worchester, MA: American Antiquarian
Society, 1947.
SML, Reference Z6951 +B75
* Many of the newspapers listed and discussed in this work are availbable
on microfilm in the Early American Newspapers collection shelved
in the Microform Reading Room.
African American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography.
Ed. James P. Dansky. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1998.
SML, Reference Z6944;N39 +A37X
American Newspapers, 1821-1936: A Union List of Files Available
in the United States and Canada. Ed. Winifred Gregory. New York:
H.W. Wilson, 1967.
SML, Card Catalogue Reference Shelf Z6945 A48
1967
Also in SML, Andrews Study
Newspapers on Microform: United States, 1948-1983. Washington,
DC: Library or Congress, 1984.
SML, Catalog Reference Desk Z6951 +U469.
Also in SML, Reference, Microform Reading Room.
To determine if Yale University Libraries own a particular newspaper,
first check Orbis, the
online catalog. Then check this database:
Newspaper
Holdings of the Yale University Library is a record of Yale
Library holdings of newspapers in microform. This list does not
include all of the newspapers to be found in the original, in reprints,
or in fascimile in the SML stacks, in the Mudd Library, or in the
Beinecke, though it does contain some of this material. Neither
does it include all of the Underground Newspaper Collection (Film
S618). It does include bound newspapers with a delta classification.
If we do not have a particular newspaper, you may be able able
borrow it from another library via interlibrary loan. Check the
Center
for Research Libraries (CRL), Eureka,
Worldcat,
and/or Borrow
Direct.
Few newspapers have published indexes. Here are a few print
and online newspaper indexes and fulltext databases.
Antislavery Newspapers and Periodicals. Ed. John W. Blassingame,
Mae G. Henderson. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980-1984.
SML, Reference, Index Case AI3 A58 (LC)
- Volume I. Annotated index of letters in The Philanthropist,
(Mt. Pleasant, OH); Emancipator, (Jonesborough, TN); Genius
of Universal Emancipation; Abolition Intelligencer,
(Shelbyville, KY); African Observer, (Philadelphia) and
The Liberator, (Boston) 1831-1845.
- Volume II. Annotated index of letters in The Liberator,
(Boston) 1846-1865; Anti-Slavery Record, (New York); Human
Rights, (New York); and The Observer, (St. Louis).
- Volume III. Annotated index of letters in The Friend of Man,
(Utica, NY) Pennsylvania Freeman; Advocate of Freedom,
(Hallowell, ME); and American & Foreign Anti-slavery Reporter
(New York).
- Volume IV. Annotated index of letters in The National Anti-Slavery
Standard, 1840-1860.
- Volume V. Annotated index of letters in The National Anti-Slavery
Standard, 1861-1871.
Black Newspapers Index. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1987 -.
SML, Reference, Index Case A13 +I45 (LC)
*Continues Index to Black Newspapers, 1977-1986.
Indexes citations for and includes brief abstracts for book motion
picutre, and musical recodings reviews; editorials; obituaries and
other abstracts for book motion picture, and musical recodings reviews;
editorials; obituaries and other general interst articles published
in the Afro-American (Baltimore and Washington, DC); New
York Amsterdam News; Chicago Defender; Journal and
Guide (Norfolk, VA); Los Angeles Sentinal; Michigan
Chronicle and Musline Journal (Chicago).
Nineteenth Century African American Newspapers
Part of Accessible
Archives : a searchable collection of American newspapers from
the 18th & 19th Centuries. Eras covered include the Colonial Period,
the French & Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, African-American
History, Industrial Revolution, and Genealogy
New
York Times Index
Print version is located in SML, Reference, Index
Case AI21 +N43 (1851-1945) and
SML Microtext Center, AI21 +N43 (1946-present).
A few newspapers and newsletters are available online. Below are
a few databases that offer full-text online editions of these publications:
Academic
Universe (from the producers of Lexis-Nexis) is a full-text
news and information service that provides access to newspapers,
magazines, transcripts, business and legal information and much
more.
Accesible
Archives provides a searchable collection of American newspapers
from the 18th &19th Centuries. Titles include the Pennsylvania
Gazette and African-American Newspapers: the 19th Century.
Early
American Newspapers features cover-to-cover reproductions of
hundreds of historic newspapers, providing more than one million
pages as fully text-searchable facsimile images. This collection
is based largely on Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography
of American Newspapers, 1690-1820.
Ethnic
Newswatch is a full-text collection of the newspapers, magazines
and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. (Also available
SML, Microtext Center, CD-ROM.)
Historical
Newspapers Online
Contains the New York Times Index
*Print version of NYTI is located in SML, Reference, Index Case
AI21 +N43 (1851-1945) and SML Microtext Center, AI21 +N43 (1946-present).
- Proquest Historical Newspapers contains:
- Chicago
Tribune
Los
Angeles Times
New
York Times (Historical)
Washington
Post
Below are a few journals and websites with current African-American
news:
African
American Male Research
Afro-Amerc@: Afro-American Newspapers
Home Page
Afronet
Black Enterprise Magazine
TheGriot
Other
Journals (Through the Smithsonian)
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How to Locate Government Documents
When looking for government-related documents, databases and indexes
are useful. Below are some databases and websites that are particularly
helpful when looking for pre-1900s government documents.
Congressional
Universe
Congressional Universe is an online legislative and regulatory service.
It provides indexing and abstracting for congressional hearings,
prints, bills, reports and documents.
U.S.
Congressional Serial Set
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set is comprised of the bound, sequentially
numbered volumes of all the Reports, Documents, and Journals of
the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. This digitized version
includes Serial Set volumes 1-161 (15th-19th Congresses, 1817-1827).
Southern Oregon Digital Archives
(SOU)
A digital library primarily from the SOU Library’s rich collections
of federal, state, and county publications. The Library is concentrating
its efforts on two collections of regional materials pertaining
to the Southern Oregon Bioregion and the First Nations/ Tribal Collection.
AMDOCS:
Documents for the Study of American History
Full-text documents of many important historical and government
texts.
Nineteenth Century
Documents Project (Furman)
Includes accurate transcriptions of many important and representative
primary texts from nineteenth century American history, with special
emphasis on those sources that shed light on sectional conflict
and transformations in regional identity.
Collection
Finder for the American Memory Project (Library of Congress)
Avalon Project
(Yale Law School)
The purpose of the Avalon Project is to present digital historical
documents relevant to the fields of law, economics, politics, diplomacy
and government on the World Wide Web.
Document
Collections of the Avalon Project (includes the UN)
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How to Locate
Manuscripts and Archives
Manuscript materials can be difficult to locate. Below are some electronic
resources to help you locate them:
Archival
Finding Aid Project (Yale University Library)
Provides access to archival finding aids in a platform-independent
electronic format, using SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
and HTML. Finding aids are inventories, indexes, or guides that
are created by archival and manuscript repositories to provide information
about specific collections. While the finding aids created by repositories
may vary somewhat in style, their common purpose is to provide detailed
description of the content and intellectual organization of collections.
Access to finding aids through the Internet will assist scholars
in determining whether collections contain material relevant to
their research.
Archival
Resources integrates the portion of the Research Libraries Group's
RLIN database (Eureka) containing close to half a million descriptive
records of archival collections with a growing range of online finding
aids or detailed collection guides and inventories. Archival Resources
uses a modified form of the Eureka interface
ArchivesUSA
Integrates three resources: The National Union Catalog of Manuscript
Collections (NUCMUC), The Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories
in the US (DARMUS), and The National Inventory of Documentary Sources
in the United States (NIDS).
Eureka
Provides catalog records for books, journals, maps, sound recordings,
musical scores, films, archives, and computer files held in research,
corporate, and public libraries, as well as museums, archives and
historical societies.
Guides
to Microforms (in Lexis-Nexis Primary Sources in U.S. History)
provide a web-based finding aid for certain microform collections.
Instead of searching through several printed guides that accompany
microforms, you may search all the microform collections in the
database by keyword or browse the electronic versions of the printed
guides by title or subject. The end result will be a list of descriptions
of records you can find either in Yale University Library's microform
collections or through interlibrary loan.
History
Universe
Provides a web-based finding aid for 125 microform collections.
Materials can then be accessed through Yale University Library's
collections or through inter-library loan.
Worldcat
Contains over 39 million records from academic, public, special
and national libraries around the world.
For a list of relevant Manuscripts, Archives, and Collections, please
see the Manuscripts, Archives, and Collections
page
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Where To Find
Basic Biographical Information and To Check Facts (online)
American
National Biography
Offers portraits of more than 17,400 men and women -- from all eras
and walks of life. The online edition is updated quarterly, with
hundreds of new entries each year and revisions of previously published
entries to enhance their accuracy and currency. The ANB Online also
features thousands of illustrations, more than 80,000 hyperlinked
cross-references and links to select web sites.
Biography
and Genealogy Master Index
An index to nearly 12 million biographical sketches in more than
2700 volumes and editions of current and retrospective reference
books, covering both contemporary and historical figures throughout
the world.
Biography
Index
Biography Index is a bibliographic database that cites biographical
material appearing in more than 3,000 periodicals indexed in other
Wilson databases and additional selected periodicals, some 2,500
current books (annually) of individual and collective biography,
and incidental biographical material in otherwise non-biographical
books.
Biography
Resource Center (BioRC)
A database of biographical information throughout history, around
the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. It combines
more than 245,000 biographies from sources such as Contemporary
Authors, Encyclopedia of World Biography, Newsmakers, Contemporary
Theatre, Film, and Television, Contemporary Musicians, Historic
World Leaders, Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists, Contemporary
Black Biography, Religious Leaders of America, International Dictionary
of Art and Artists, Writers Directory; with full-text articles from
nearly 250 periodicals including American History, The Christian
Century, Saturday Night, U.S. News & World Report.
World
Biographical Index is a good first step for locating very basic
information about people from North and South America, Western and
Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, through the
beginning of the 20th century. It is essentially an index to over
3000 biographical reference works which have been microfilmed. Yale's
microfiche sets are housed in the SML, Starr Main Reference Room
Annex.
General (online) Encyclopedias
Britannica
Online
Britannica Online includes the complete, updated Encyclopædia
Britannica, selected articles from more than 70 of the world's top
magazines--including Newsweek, Discover, and The Economist, and
a guide to the Web sites
Dictionary
of American History (third edition) is the first comprehensive
revision of the classic reference source originally published in
1940. Entries from previous editions have been updated and revised
in light of historical developments and current scholarship, and
over 800 entirely new entries have been commissioned to cover recent
events ("Bush v. Gore") and topics neglected by previous
editions ("Harlem Renaissance"). For the first time, 1,500
illustrations and 300 maps have been incorporated into the main
body of the work which includes over 4,400 articles ranging in length
from 100 to 8,000 words.
Keesing's
Record of World Events provides objective international news
reports and resources to communicate with leaders around the world
since 1931.
Oxford
Reference (History) brings subject dictionaries and reference
works published by Oxford University Press into a single cross-searchable
resource. It is also possible to search each title in the collection
individually.
Statistics
African
American Census Data
The
Atlantic Slave Trade: Demographic Simulation
Mathematicians
of the African Diaspora
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