Stewart Library owns or has access to a large number of resources
to help in your research.
Getting Started: if you're not sure
of a topic or need some background information, reference books can be very
helpful. Some good ones to start with are:
| Online Dictionaries
& Encyclopedias from Xreferplus,
including: Dictionary of Contemporary History, Concise Atlas of
World History, and the Andromeda Encyclopedia Dictionary
of World History. |
from Xreferplus, requires WSU ID |
| Online Dictionaries & Encyclopedias from Oxford
Reference Online, including: The Oxford Dictionary
of Islam, Dictionary of Contemporary World History, Who's Who in the Twentieth
Century and many more. |
From Oxford Reference Online, requires WSU ID |
| The New Encyclopedia of Islam |
REF BP40.G42 2001 |
| Historical dictionary of Islamic fundamentalist
movements in the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey |
REF BP60.M36 1999 |
| Islam beyond terrorists and terrorism : biographies
of the most influential Muslims in history |
REF BP70.M34 2002 |
| Dictionary of the History of Ideas |
REF CB 5 .D52 9973 |
| Historiography: An Annotated Bibliography
of Journal Articles, Books & Dissertations |
REF D 13 .H5 1987 |
| Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical
Writing |
REF D 14 .E53 1999 |
| AHA Guide to Historical Literature |
REF D 20 .A4 1995 |
| Historical atlas of the crusades |
REF D158.K66 2002 |
| Atlas of the Jewish world |
REF DS117.D4 1984 |
| The Oxford dictionary of Byzantium |
REF DF521.O93 1991 |
| Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World |
REF DS 35.53 .O9 1995 |
| Encyclopedia of the modern Middle East |
REF DS43.E53 1996 |
| The Cambridge encyclopedia of the Middle East and North
Africa |
REF DS44.C37 1988 |
| The Middle East : a political dictionary
|
REF DS61.Z58 1992 |
| The Biographical dictionary of the Middle
East |
REF DS62.4.B56 1991 |
| Encyclopedia Judaica |
REF DS 102.8 .E496 1978 |
| Historical dictionary of Palestine |
REF DS102.8.N397 1997 |
| Encyclopedia of African History & Culture |
REF DT 3 P27 2001 |
| Islamic family law in a changing world :
a global resource book |
REF KMM554.I76 2002 |
| Companion encyclopedia of Middle Eastern
and North African film |
REF PN1993.5.A65C66 2001 |
| Combined Retrospective Index to Journals
in History 1838-1974. |
REF Z 6205 .C18 |
You can find many other reference
books on historical topics by browsing the following call number areas:
BP
Islam
C
the auxiliary sciences of history (archaeology, chronology,
biography, etc.)
DS
Asian History, including the Middle East
DT
African History, including North Africa
You can also find historical works
in many other areas. For example, economic history is in the H's,
the history of Medicine is in R, Diplomatic history is often in the
J area (political science).
Finding Books:
Use the WSU
online catalog to find what books and other materials, such as videos,
the Library owns. The catalog will provide the location and availability
of the resource. WorldCat
is a patron accessible version of the OCLC Online Union Catalog, which we
use to borrow books from other libraries. It contains more than 35 million
records describing items owned by libraries around the world; each record
contains library holdings. ~1000 A.D.-present. We also have a subscription
to Netlibrary, which
provides access to electronic books.
Finding Articles:
The best way to find articles is
to use one of the Library's article databases. These databases
provide references to articles in journals. In many cases, the actual
article is available on the computer.
Our databases are available
from home or work. Just click on the link and enter your ID number when prompted.
Don't know your ID or pin number? Directions for finding them are available
on our Off-Campus Access
page.
NOTE:
If you can't find information on your topic in these databases, there are
two likely possibilities:
1.) you need to try different search terms or enter them differently
2.)
most of the research on that topic predates database coverage and you will
need to use print resources.
Useful databases for most historical
research include:
- Academic Search Elite
is a general database that allows you to search important journals in many
fields, including all areas of history. It has many full-text articles
and is a good place to begin your research.
- Historical Abstracts
Index to scholarly literature in world history, excluding
the United States and Canada. 1964-present.
- Reader's Guide
Index to popular magazines (mostly US) such as Time and Newsweek.
Good source for social history. 1983 - present.
- Reader's Guide Retrospective
- Reader's Guide from 1890 - 1982. Search using
current or original subject headings.
- PAIS
citations to information on Public Affairs, with some abstracts, 1972
- present, updates monthly -- a good source for information
on areas around the world from an economic or political perspective.
- Worldwide
Political Science Abstracts - Citations and abstracts to the literature
of political science and its complementary fields, including international
relations, law, and public administration / policy. Includes Political Science
Abstracts and ABC POL SCI. 1975 to present.
- Humanities Abstracts
Index (with summaries) to articles and reviews of books, plays, and radio/TV
programs in the humanities, including history of all periods and archaeology.
1984 - present.
- Lexis/Nexis Universe
Full-text coverage of many news, legal, and business resources.
Dates of coverage vary, many update daily.
- Military and Government
Collection (Formerly Military Library) Provides fulltext
for over 430 military and government related periodicals and general interest
magazines.
- Ethnic NewsWatch
Full text articles from minority and ethnic newspapers, magazines,
and journals in English and Spanish. 1960-present.
- GenderWatch
Full text Newspaper, magazine, and journal articles addressing the
impact of gender in society. 1990-Present (with selected articles
from the 1970's and 1980's)
- Contemporary Women's
Issues (CWI) Citations and selected fulltext from articles about contemporary
women's issues on health and human rights. 1992 to present.
- Book Review Digest
Reviews of fiction and nonfiction in magazines and journals. Available
in print. East Wall in Reference Area, REF Z1219.C962 . 1905
to present.
- Books in Print with Book
Reviews Features more than 350,000 full text reviews from nine
leading sources and consists of bibliographic records from over 46,000 publishers.
Also includes Books Out of Print.
- Literature Resource
Center a complete literature reference database designed for both
the undergraduate and graduate student - a good place to look for basic
biographical information and critical analysis.
- MLA Bibliography
a good place to look for information on mythology and folklore, though mostly
from a literary perspective.
Ancient & Medieval History:
Ancient & Medieval History:
many of the more general databases listed above will cover some ancient &
medieval history. However, for more specific information, you will need
to use print indexes and abstracts. The good news is that are many excellent
resources available on the internet, including primary sources.
- L'Annee Philologique
- this is "the" bibliography for Greece &
Rome and their neighbors, including Byzantium. It comes out annually,
but runs several years behind. Entries in French, English and a variety
of other languages. Focus is predominantly Classical, but also some
earlier and later coverage. Now has some online access.
- Medieval - there are
a number of specialized medieval indices, many in French and some in Latin.
If you can't find what you need in the databases listed above, please contact
me (Kathy Payne) and we'll figure
out what's best for your subject. Expect to have to travel to
another library. For a short paper try using Academic
Search Elite or Humanities
Abstracts.
Ejournals
is a database of all the full-text journals, magazines and newspapers that
are available to WSU library patrons in all of our different databases.
You can search the name of the journal by title or title keyword to get a
link to the resource.
We have several databases that provide
access to full-text history journals. The two most important for history
are:
- JSTOR
A group of fulltext journals in general science, history, economics,
ecology, literature, mathematics, political science, and population studies.
Dates of coverage vary. This is an archival database. It
does NOT cover the most recent 3-5 years, back issues only.
- Project Muse
Full-text journals in many fields
If you are doing research on history
in a specific field, such as medicine, science, theater, business, and so
on, it can be helpful to look in a database specific to that field.
For example: to research medical history, look in a medical
database, to research theater history look in a performing arts database.
Ask a librarian to help determine which database is best for your topic.
Browsing Current Periodicals:
You can also browse through journals
and magazines. This can be helpful when you're looking for a topic.
Current issues are on the 1st floor south, older volumes on the 2nd floor.
Use the call number areas listed under books. For example:
BP 1 Islamic Studies
D
1 General History
DS
1 Asian Studies (includes Middle East)
Interlibrary Loan:
If we do not own a particular book
or article you need, we will borrow it for you from another library through
Interlibrary Loan.
There's a lot of good
information out on the web. Unfortunately, some it's not so good, so
be sure to evaluate, evaluate, evaluate! Some interesting places to
start looking are:
There are many other excellent
history sites. Most are listed on one of the three sites listed above.
You can also use a search engine to find more specific pages. I recommend
www.google.com. Other good search
engines to try are: alltheweb.com
and teoma.com. Kartoo
charts results graphically - give it a try. And remember: evaluate,
evaluate, evaluate!
Useful
Guides
- Reading, Writing & Researching for History from Patrick Rael at Bowdoin
College - excellent guides
- Clearly identify your information need
- Identify key words and search
terms to match your topic
- Develop search statements using
advanced search techniques such as Boolean logic, adjacency searching
and truncation.
- Use the Online catalog
to find books, videos and other materials
- Use an appropriate article database
to find journal articles, ask a librarian for help if you're not sure
what's best
- Use Interlibrary loan to get
materials that are not in Stewart Library
- Use search engines
to find Web information
- Carefully evaluate
the information you find for usefulness and quality
- Revise your search terms and strategy to expand or narrow your results,
be creative, look in other areas
- Use appropriate style to document
and cite research
- Ask for HELP at Reference
, via phone or email