Historiography

HIST 201; Prof. C. Meyer
Guide for finding sources at the George T. Potter Library
 

September 24 , 2007

Susan B. Kurzmann

skurzman@ramapo.edu

 I.  Library Homepage: http://library.ramapo.edu

  • Provides access to the catalog (OPAC), databases, interlibrary loan forms, etc.

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II. Find Books

  • Catalog: Use this to find books, periodical titles (NOT articles), government documents, reserve items, music, and movies owned by the Library. You may limit a search by language, year(s) of publication, type of material, etc. The catalog may take a few seconds to load.
  • Searching the catalog for secondary source material:
    • In Basic Search, use the keyword default setting to find material
      • search for the time period or event you are researching to locate a broad range of materials the library has on these keywords
      • Your results will come up ranked by relevance. You may then re-sort them by title, author, publish [=publication] date, or publish date descending
      • When you find an appropriate title, click on the Related Records tab located at the top of a catalog record to see the subject headings associated with that particular item. These linked subject headings will take you to other material on the same subject matter.
       

    OR

    • Search the catalog using Subject Browse feature if you know the relevant Library of Congress (LC) subject heading, for example:

      • Historiography

      • History--Methodology
      • History--Sources--Evaluation
      • [Name of country]--Historiography
      • United States--History--19th Century--Historiography
      • [Art--Historiography]
       
  • Primary sources enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. The information and ideas were either created during the time period or created later by a participant or observer of the event being studied.

           Examples of primary sources:

    •  Memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews, and other first-person accounts
    • Official publications, government documents, court reports, and police records
    • Newspaper and magazine articles from the period under study
    • Art work, photographs
    • Audio material, i.e., music recordings or recordings of speeches
    • Film and television programs
    • Print and television advertisments
     
  • Searching the catalog for primary source material :   
    • Use the Advanced Search option

      • OR

    • Use the Command line / Boolean terms search option under Basic Search
     
    • Both these options allow you to enter additonal terms that will insure that your results will be primary source material
      • For example:
        • in Advanced Search, enter american indians and sources
        • in Command line / Boolean terms option, enter "american indians " and sources
      •  
    • Use words like correspondence, memoir, letter, interview, autobiographies, or diaries to help you to locate source material
     

Tips

  • Start with broad searches. It is much easier to discard too much rather than start with too little.
  • If you don't know the Subject Heading, use the Related Records tab located on the top of a catalog record to get to the headings. This will help you focus in on more relevant material.
  • You can "virtually" browse the shelves by clicking on the call number in a record.

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III. Find Books

The reference stacks are located on the 3rd floor (this is also the library's entrance).

Useful reference material for your projects:

    Reference Collection

    		 
    The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature Ref D20.Z99G94 1992
    Dictionary of Concepts in History Ref D13.R49 1986
    Encyclopedia of Historians & Historical Writing Ref D14.E53 1999
    A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing Ref D13.G47 1998
    Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research Writing Ref D16.B893 2002
    Specific Topics  
    Look for a dictionary of the event or time period you are researching, e.g., Dictionary of American History Ref E174.D52 2003
    Find an atlas to provide a visual context, e.g., Atlas of American Migration

    Ref G1201.E27F5 1998

    Find primary source material from the time period you are researching, e.g., Annals of America Ref E173.A793 2003

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IV. Find Articles (Databases)

Useful Databases for your projects:

JSTOR Comprised of the full-text of more than 500 academic journals

America: History and Life

OR

Historical Abstracts

Default setting: the database searches both America: History and Life (history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present) and Historical Abstracts (history of the world from 1450 to the present (excludes the United States and Canada). You can select to search only one or the other.

Both are abstract databases of scholarly material.

*Click on Fulltext or Primary Catalog links to see if we have access to the full text of the article through another database or in print in our collection.

*Use the CLIO Notes to provide basic information about the event/time period.

Academic Search Premier

A multi-disciplinary database containing both full-text articles and citations.

*When only a citation is included, click on the Check availability at Ramapo link to see if the full text of the article is available in our collection.

*May limit search to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
Historical New York Times Full-text and full-image articles from The New York Times dating back to1851. Includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue,  cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files.

 

Scholarly/Peer Reviewed/Refereed articles have been reviewed by a selected panel of experts in the discipline covered by that journal. Many of the databases allow you to limit your search to these articles.

Tips

  • Switch to the Advanced Search page in a database. This will give you more control over your results.
  • Use Boolean Operators-AND, OR, NOT and Quotation Marks when running a search. For Example: "Turner thesis" OR "frontier experience "
  • Always check your Spelling if the database results are zero.
  • Use the Subject Terms or Thesaurus link, if available, to find the best terms to use in a database.
 

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V. Interlibrary Loan and Journal Finder

  • Interlibrary Loan: allows you to borrow a book or article that the George T. Potter library does not own. There is also a link from the Journal Finder page.
  • Journal Finder: locate the full text of articles in specific periodicalss (journals, newspapers, magazines)to which we have access either in our print or microform collection or through a full-text database.

Find both these links under Quick Links on the library's homepage

 

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VI. Preparing Bibliographies

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VII. Using Web Sources

Use Evaluating Websites to determine if the site is authoritative enough to use in your paper.

Useful Websites

Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University Library

(H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences) listservs for various topics in the Humanites and Social Sciences

     

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Need more help? Visit or call the Reference Desk: 201.684.7574

OR

Use QandA NJ.org, a 24/7 virtual chat service with a reference librarian
 
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