History 84 : U.S. Culture Wars
Fall 2006
GENERAL SOURCES | ENCYCLOPEDIAS, HANDBOOKS, ETC. | BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND INDEXES | A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES | PRIMARY SOURCES
GENERAL SOURCES
Use the online Five-College Library Catalog to find books and
backfiles of journals. All books are listed by their AUTHORS (last name
first), TITLES, and SUBJECTS, and you can also use the KEYWORD function
to search.
KEYWORD searching is not likely to yield a complete list of
locally-owned books on any particular topic, but it's a good way to start;
type in a common language characterization of your topic, say "american
women" (quotation marks yield exact-phrase searching), then, if you note in the Full View catalog record which official subject headings are assigned to the titles that interest you, you can
click on them to do a more thorough SUBJECT search.
SUBJECT searching (i.e. "Subject begins with" in the Basic Search options) requires that you use the exact
word or phrase libraries have chosen to describe your topic; the official
SUBJECT for the above example would be "Women--United States". Also, most
subject categories have detailed sub-divisions (such as "Women--United
States--History" or "Women--Massachusetts") so be as specific
as possible. The five-volume Library of Congress Subject Headings,
near the Reference Desk, is a thesaurus of official library terminology.
Consult it if you're not sure of the official subject vocabulary, or use
the KEYWORD feature interactively, and/or ask for assistance from a Reference
Librarian.
For quick background information, try the Britannica Online from any computer on campus;
just click on the colored link.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS, HANDBOOKS, ETC.
The Reference Collection on the first
floor of the Library houses many printed dictionaries, encyclopedias,
statistical compilations, etc., which may support your research. Works
like the Encyclopedia of
American Social History (Ref HN 57 E58 1993), the Dictionary of American History (Ref E
174 D52 2003), the Encyclopedia of American Cultural & Intellectual
History (Ref E 169.1 E624 2001), and the Encyclopedia of the United
States in the Nineteenth Century (Ref E 169.1 E626 2001), and the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (Ref E 169.1 S764 2000)
are good for browsing, if you're hunting for a research topic, and also
useful for background information and fact-checking. Depending on your
topic, use the Library catalog - or ask a Reference Librarian - to find
other specialized works such as the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Crime
and Justice (Ref HV 6017 E52 1983), the Handbook of American Women's
History (Ref HQ 1410 H36 1990), The Encyclopedia of Drug Abuse (Ref HV 5804 O24 1984), The Encyclopedia of American Religious History (Ref BL 2525 Q44 1996), The Encyclopedia of Censorship (Ref Z 657
G73 1990), etc.
Historical Statistics of the United States (shelved
at the Reference Desk; ask for it there) is a basic collection of historical
data covering demography, economics, social statistics, etc., from colonial
times to 1970. The annual Statistical Abstract of the U.S. (the most recent copy is also at the Reference Desk) has an even wider
array of data about the U.S. , but only for recent years. There are also
more-narrowly-focused compilations such as the Statistical Record of
Hispanic Americans (Ref E 184 S75 S74 1993), and the Statistical
Handbook on Women in America (Ref HQ 1420 T34 1991), etc. Nowadays,
too, there's lots of Internet-accessible statistical information; CIS
Statistical Universe Index, for instance, connects you to over
100,000 U.S., international, and intergovernmental statistical publications,
most of relatively recent vintage.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES, INDEXES, AND DATABASES
Subject bibliographies and indexes in the Reference
Collection can lead you to readings in your area of research; they are
useful even when older and not including citations to current publications;
computerized indexes enable you to update.
For recommended books about many aspects of American
history, you can look at the sections on U.S. history in the latest edition
of the American Historical Association Guide to Historical Literature (Ref Z 6201 A55 1995). See also the three-volume American Studies:
An Annotated Bibliography (Ref Z 136 C6 A436 1986).
The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture (Ref E 169.1 G7555 2002) is an interesting, four-volume work to consult
if you are shopping for a topic; if you're lucky, one of its substantial
bibliographic essays will be right on target for you. And there are many other bibliographies which list books and articles
in specific subjects, like American Working Class History (Ref
HD 8066 N48 1983), Cities (Ref HT 123 H66 1976), Drug Trafficking
Research in the Americas: An Annotated Bibliography (Ref Z 7164 N17
D76 1997), Church and State in America (Ref BR 516 C48 1986), Right
Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought (Ref E 839.5
W65 1987) Arts in America: a Bibliography (Ref NX 503 A78 1979), Women in American History (Ref Z 7962 H37), American Family
History (Ref HQ 535 A587 1984), etc. To locate topical bibliographies,
use the SUBJECT category in the Library Catalog, guess at KEYWORD(s),
and/or ask at the Reference Desk.
Until it stopped publication in 1990, Writings on American
History (Ref E 171 W7) was the standard annual index to journal articles
in American history. America:
History and Life (click here to connect) is a flexible, powerful
computerized index of periodical articles in American Studies published
since 1982.
Other important online resources include full-text databases
like The
New York Times Online (1851-2001), the American
Periodicals Series (a searchable collection of articles in over
a thousand, mostly 19th century American magazines), and African
American Newspapers: 19th Century, and don't neglect legitimate
World Wide Web resources, a selection of which is accessible from the
Library's American
Studies page.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES
Printed and computerized indexes and bibliographies
provide citations to articles which may or may not be owned by the Amherst
College Library. To find out if and where we have older issues of journals,
you must look up each journal title (not article titles or authors)
in the Library Catalog (use the "Journal title keywords" search). Be attentive to volume numbers and dates which
show up onscreen since sometimes we've started or stopped a subscription
in the middle of a run. Some older volumes of journals may be housed
in the Amherst College Depository, an off-campus storage facility. You
can request volumes from the Depository by filling out a form which pops
up when you select "Requests" from the left side of the Library
homepage, then "Amherst College Depository". More and more journals are offering
full-text in electronic form; most of those we have access to are linked
to records in the online Library Catalogs and are reachable using a "Journal title keywords" search. Another finding tool is the Journal Locator, clickable
from the box above right, on this page.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Primary sources are sometimes hard to track
down (not to mention define). Artifacts, contemporary printed accounts,
and manuscripts are among the sorts of sources which may be called "primary."
Some primary sources, those in local collections, are findable using our
online Library Catalog, others can be tracked down via the World Wide
Web (click on "Research and Using the Library" in the Library homepage, then select "Archival
& Primary Sources" in the "Advanced Search Tools" column), and some are only discoverable
using special finding aids maintained by libraries and museums.
One crucial source is the National
Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (click here for access
to the computerized version; it's also available iin printed form: Ref
Z 6620 U5 N3) which lists major holdings in American libraries.
For old newspapers, you might look at Newspapers in Microform (a
three-volume printed set, shelved at the Reference Desk; ask for it there),
a listing organized by state and city which is good for clearly identifying
old papers and figuring out which are likely to be available via inter-library
loan.
For U. S. government documents, the handbook Using Government
Information Sources, Print and Electronic (shelved behind the Reference
Desk) is recommended for getting oriented. The Monthly Catalog of Government
Publications (Ref Z 1223 A18) is organized by agency, with subject
indexes; it goes back to 1789. The Amherst College Library is what's called
a "Selective Depository" for U.S. documents, meaning we get
a lot, but not all items issued; most titles are catalogued and so accessible
via the online Library Catalog. Congressional hearings may be available
only in microfiche. And many older government publications are included
in a huge compilation called The Serial Set, housed at the Depository.
Some current and recent documents are electronically available; in the
Library homepage, click on "Research and Using the Library" in the Library homepage, then select "Government Documents " in the "Advanced Search Tools" column.
Comments regarding this page should be directed to: Michael Kasper