TheAmericanWest

History Seminar: American Indian History

HIST 4 ; Prof. C. Meyer
Guide for finding sources at the George T. Potter Library

February 5, 2007

Susan B. Kurzmann

skurzman@ramapo.edu

Library Homepage
Find Books
Reference Material
Find Articles (Databases)
Interlibrary Loan/Journal Finder
Websites
Bibliographies

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

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

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II. Finding Primary and Secondary Sources

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. This may take a few seconds to load.

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, for example:

Memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews, and other first-person accounts
Government documents
- You might want to limit your search to Online material (listed under Quick Links) or to the Documents Without Shelves collection)
Newspaper articles
Paintings

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 cherokee removal and sources
- in Command line/Boolean terms option, enter "cherokee removal" and sources
Using words like correspondence, memoir, letter, interview, autobiographies, or diaries will help you to locate source material
Click on the Related Records tab on the top of a 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.

Searching the catalog for secondary source material:

In Basic Search, use the keyword default setting for a basic search to find material, for example:

search for "indian problem" or "indian-white relations" 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 which Library of Congress subject headings are discussed in that particular book/DVD/periodical

OR

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

Indians of North America
- may subdivide by various topics:
  --Treaties
  --Legal statutes, laws, etc.
  --Economic conditions
  --Government relations
  --Rites and ceremonies
Indian land transfers
Pueblo Indians
Indian women--United States
Indians in literature
Tribal government--United States

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.
Can "virtually" browse the shelves by clicking on the call number in a record.

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III. Reference Material

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

Some useful materials for your projects:

American Indian Chronology: Chronologies of the American Mosaic	Ref E77 .W47 2006
Annals of America	Ref E173 .A793 2003
A Bibliographical Guide to the History of Indian-White Relations	Ref Z1209.2 .U5 P67
Dictionary of the American Indian	Ref E77 .S84
Documents of American Indian Diplomacy	Ref KF8202 1999.
Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North American	On Order
The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes	Ref E77 .G 1998
Handbook of North Americna Indians	Ref E76.2 .H36
Native America in the Twentieth Cnetury	Ref E76.2 .N36 1994
The Native North American Almanac	Ref E77 .N37 1994
The Praeger Handbook on Contemporary Issues in Native America	Ref E98 .S67 J65 2007
Statistical Record of Native North Americans	Ref E9 .P76 S73 1993
Writings on American History	Ref Z1236 .L33
Atlases
Historical Atlas of the American West	Ref atlas tables G1381 .S1 B4 1989
Mapping America's Past	Ref atlas tables G1201 .S1 C3 1996
Rand McNally's Pioneer Atlas of the American West	Ref atlas tables G1380 .R35 1969

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IV. Electronic Resources

Some useful Databases for your projects:

JSTOR	Comprised of the full-text of more than 500 academic journals
America: History & Life	History of the United States and Canada from pre-history to the present. Links to JSTOR full-text and use Primary Catalog link to search our library holdings.
Humanities Index	Cites articles from English-language periodicals. Periodical coverage includes some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known but important specialized magazines .
The Historical New York Times	This database offers full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times dating back to the 1851.
Ethnic NewsWatch	A full-text interdisciplinary database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press
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" See "Cited References" feature
America's Newspapers	This database provides full-text articles from the electronic editions of record for more than 300 U.S. newspapers.

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: Indians and (United States or Canada) and Indians OR ("economic conditions" or "social conditions")
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 studens to borrow a book or article that the George T. Potter library does not own. There is a link from the Journal Finder page and under Quick Links on the library's homepage.

Journal Finder: 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 this link under Quick Links on the library's homepage. Useful journals for your reserach to which we provide access via a database and/or print:

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VI. Using Web Sources

Use Evaluating Websites to determine if a website is authoritative enough to use in your paper.

Useful websites:
The Library of Congress: American Memory (Also linked under Subject Resources: History)

Access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music

Check the following Subject Resources linked under History: