History:
Starting Your Research
This guide is not a comprehensive listing of resources, but instead is intended to assist you in finding some of the most useful and important materials in our collection. If researching an interdisciplinary topic, you may want to consult the Subject Guides related to the other disciplines. For information about studying history at Portland State University, see the History Department Web site. For help with questions relating to historical research, contact Jennifer Dorner, the History Librarian, at dorner@pdx.edu or 503-725-4125.
In this section on starting your research, those resources have been selected which will aid you in almost every area of historical study. The other sections of this guide include resources that are specific to the topic and an attempt to avoid duplication has been made. In almost every research project, you should start here and then move on to the more specific guide.
Starting Your Research | Historiography
| Primary Sources
History of Science | Public History
Finding Background Information
Reference resources provide excellent background/overview information and are a great place to begin your research. They frequently contain contain articles written by experts for a general audience. Most of these tools include indexes that indicate the scope of coverage of a topic and help pinpoint articles in which a concept will be discussed. Sources for further reading are usually included.
Atlas of world history / ed. by Patrick K. O'Brien
Location: G1030 .O85 PSU MapsChronology of world history / by H.E.L. Mellersh
Location: D11 .M39 1999 Reference
The Routledge companion to historical studies / by Alun Munslow
Location: D13 .M86 2000 Reference
Finding Articles
To find articles in journals, magazines, or newspapers, you will need to use one of the Library's print indexes or article databases. An index or article database will allow you to look for articles by title, by author, or by a few keywords that describe your topic. This is just a selection of the the tools that might be relevant -- you may find additional databases to be of use to you.Most useful for historical topics:
Other useful tools:America History and Life
Database which provides citations to articles on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Citations are drawn from over 2,000 journals in history, related humanities, and the social sciences. Includes citations to book reviews (appearing in 100 major history journals) and dissertations.C.R.I.S. : the combined retrospective index set to journals in history, 1838-1974
Location: Z6205 .C18 Reference
Indexes all articles from the earliest volumes through 1974 for 243 English-language periodicals covering all periods and all areas in the field of history. The articles are arranged by country in Vols. 1-4Historical Abstracts
Database indexes over 2,000 history, social sciences and humanities journals, providing citation information for resources that offer historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).Humanities Index
Database containing the indexing of journals from a variety of humanities fields including archaeology and classical studies, area studies, folklore, history, language and literature, performing arts, philosophy, religion, theology and related subjects.Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective, 1907-1984
Indexing of nearly 1,200 periodicals, as far back as 1907. Citations to more than 1,300,000 articles, including over 240,000 book reviews. This retrospective index has broad subject coverage from the both the Humanities and the Social Sciences.Royal Historical Society Bibliography
This online bibliography lists secondary sources -- articles, book chapters, and books -- relating to the history of the British Isles from 55BC to the present. Although not a full text database, online text is provided when possible and links to full text in other databases are also included. Published works back to 1900 are indexed and the bibliography is updated three times a year.International Medieval Bibliography
The IMB is an interdisciplinary bibliography containing citations to approximately 300,000 publications dating from 1967 onwards. It indexes periodicals, book chapters and miscellanies in 30 languages. The time span covers 300-1500 AD; the geographic focus is Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
An online bibliography that includes citations of works covering the period 400-1700. The citations
are to journal articles published from 1943 to present, and to essays published in collections from 1995 to present. The database grew out of a project of the Renaissance Society of America in conjunction with a few Universities.Academic Search Premier
Database providing full text for over 1,250 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, and current affairs. Covers articles published from 1984-present.ArticleFirst
Database of nearly two million bibliographic records from the tables of contents of more than 3,000 journals, covering a broad range of subjects including business, humanities, medicine, popular culture, science, social science, and technology. Most journals in ArticleFirst have been indexed from 1990 to the present.Dissertation Abstracts International
The database includes citations for materials ranging from the first U.S. dissertation, accepted in 1861, to those accepted as recently as last semester; those published from 1980 forward also include 350-word abstracts, written by the author. Citations for master's theses from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. The database represents the work of authors from over 1,000 North American graduate schools and European universities. PSU dissertations from 1997 to the present are available in full text.
Online Full Text Journals
Many, but by no means ALL, of the journals of interest in History are available online. Two sources for online full text journals are Project Muse and JSTOR. Links to individual titles are provided on the more specific subject pages. Journals contained in these resources require authentication for off-campus use.
History Cooperative
History Cooperative is a collaborative effort of a few major historical organizations to make full-text content of journals available to all readers. Content is related primarily to American history. Both browsing of titles and searching is possible. Conference papers are also being added to the database.Project Muse: Scholarly Journals Online
A source for over 100 full-text scholarly journals online in the arts & humanities, the social sciences, and mathematics. The back files for the journals are scant.JSTOR
JSTOR contains the back files of some important scholarly journals in the arts and sciences. While it is possible to search this collection, the source lends itself better to browsing the online journals or retrieving specific full-text articles.
Finding Books
Subject headings allow you to search library catalogs for materials on a particular topic. Often subject heading searching can be more productive than searching by simple keywords. Copies of the complete set of the Library of Congress Subject Headings are available at the reference desks throughout the Library.Searches can be general by not including sub categories. For example:
Great Britain -- History
Greece -- History
United States -- HistorySearches can be more specific by including more categories (region and/or time period). For example:
Great Britain History Angevin Period 1154-1216
Greece History 146 B C 323 A D
United States History 1797 1801 Naval Operations World War 1939 1945Browsing the library shelves by call number ranges is another strategy for locating information on a topic; call numbers can help you get to the "right neighborhood" in the library stacks. Because history covers such a large area, call number ranges are identified in the more specific subject guides. Only the general categories are listed here.
C Auxiliary Sciences of History D History (General) DA Great Britain DAW Central Europe DB - DJ Western Europe DJK Eastern Europe DK Russia, Soviet Union, Former Soviet Republics, Poland DL Northern Europe DP Spain, Portugal DQ Switzerland DR Balkan Peninsula DS Asia DT Africa DU Oceania DX Gypsies E America F United States local history, Latin America, Spanish America
Remember, too, that you are not just limited to what we own in our Library. Whenever you are searching, you have the option of expanding your results by clicking on the SUMMIT button in the upper right hand corner of the results screen. This automatically redoes your search in the SUMMIT catalog of the ORBIS/CASCADE Alliance. If you find an item in that catalog that you'd like to see, click on the "REQUEST THIS ITEM" link and follow the directions on the screen.If you cannot find what you need in the our catalog (VIKAT) or the catalog of the Orbis-Cascade Alliance (Summit), then you might try WorldCat. WorldCat contains more than 30 millions records for materials cataloged by the Library of Congress and OCLC member libraries, including most academic and many public libraries in the U.S. Catalog includes books, serials (journals, magazines and newspapers), musical scores, recordings, videos, computer software, films, maps and manuscripts.