Manderino Library: HIS 491: Historiographic Research: Sources and Strategies for Historiographic Research

Getting Started

Your job is to find important books and journal articles that represent the evolution of historical study on your topic. This means your bilbliography should include a mix of older and newer sources, as well as various schools of thought and historical approaches.

How do we determine what sources are important? Find what historians say are the most important sources!

Historiography may be a useful keyword to include in your search.

Try out the technique shown above in these databases:

E-Books & Library Catalog
Search the library's physical collection (books, DVDs, etc) and e-book collections (EBSCO, ProQuest, Sage, JSTOR, and Oxford).
OneSearch
To limit to books, perform your search and then check "books" in the left column under "Refine Results" and "Source Types".
America: History and Life with Full Text
Covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. (EBSCO)

More info from EBSCO
Historical Abstracts with Full Text
The leading resource for researching world history (excluding the United States and Canada, use: America: History & Life) from 1450 to the present. Includes: military history, womens history, history of education, and much more. (EBSCO)

More info from EBSCO

Finding articles from different time periods

JSTOR Journal Archive
JSTOR includes full runs of journals, often dating back to the early 1900's, which makes it a good source for locating older articles.

Locating Articles and Books Mentioned in Other Sources

So, you have a PDF of an article, a book, or some other sources that lists a book or article you need to find. That's great, but how do you get it?

OneSearch (below) is the best place to find sources for which you have the title, author, and/or other citation information. Here's how:

OneSearch
OneSearch combines most of the library's resources into a single database. Rather than search databases separately, you can do just "one search." OneSearch includes articles, books, ebooks, and more. (EBSCO)

Other Tools for Determining the Importance of a Source

Book Reviews

Historian-authored book reviews may help you determine a book's impact and the author's point of view, as well as point you to major works on the topic.

JSTOR Journal Archive
JSTOR is the best source scholarly book reviews. On the search screen, look below the search boxes and check "reviews".

America: History & Life / Historical Abstracts Combined Search
If you strike out with JSTOR, try this to find book reviews of historical books.

Google Citations

Google Scholar @ Cal U
Enter the title of a book or journal you've located on your topic and use Google Scholar to determine its impact and to link to other sources. Enter the book (or article) title and, if necessary, the author's last name. Locate the source in the results and click "Cited by?".

Google Scholar Help: Google Scholar Search Tips
Learn more about Google Scholar @ Cal U

Historian Biographies

Literature Resource Center
Provides biographical, bibliographical, and critical content on authors from all time periods, in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more. For literary research, this is the place to begin! (Gale)

Literature Resource Center includes most, but not all, of: Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and other selected Gale literary resources.
Gale Literary Index is a master index to every literary series published by Gale in print--including some series not included in LRC. This index is helpful if you have access to the print versions of the Gale resources.
Biography in Context
Find biographical information on people throughout history, from around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. Information comes from a number of reference resources and journals. (Gale)

Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing by Kelly Boyd (Editor)
Call Number: D14 .E53 1999 2nd Floor
ISBN: 1884964338
Publication Date: 1999-02-01
Published in 1999, so use only for historians writing before that date.

Wikipedia or Google?

Yes, you can find basic biographical information about historians on the Web. If you use Wikipedia, be sure to follow the References and External Links (for example).

Examples

The Problem of Slavery As History

Slavery: History and Historians

Bill Meloy

Email Me

Contact:

Office: Manderino Library 116
meloy@calu.edu

724-938-4067