U. S. History to the Civil War (History 13)

Research Guide — U. S. History to the Civil War (History 13)

Library Materials	Course Related Materials
Reference Sources Books: LC Class Number Guide Primary Sources in Schaffer Library New Acquisitions	Research by Subject: History Practicalities Blackboard
Electronic Materials	Contacts & Connections
Databases & Indexes Selected Websites Alerts	Department Liaison Bibliographic Instruction Departmental Home Page

Library Materials > Reference Sources

Encyclopedias, Handbooks, Bibliographies and Specialized Dictionaries

Encyclopedia articles, written by subject authorities, provide information useful for gaining a basic understanding of a topic and getting started with a research project. Typically, a bibliography of "classic" books and articles for further research follows each article. Students will find also these encyclopedias useful for brushing up on topics related to their central area of investigation.

U.S. History Sources

"Unites States History." Encyclopedia Britannica <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=121257> [Online][Accessed January 13, 2003]. Restricted to Union College Community

The American Civil War. Editor, Franklin Ng. New York, London, Toronto: Marshall Cavendish, 1995.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E 184 .O6 A8271995 -- v. 1-6

Dictionary of American History. Revised edition. New York: Scribner, 1976-1978.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E 174 .D52 1976 -- v. 1-8

Encyclopedia of American Economic History: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Glenn Porter, editor. New York: Scribners, 1980.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HC 103 .E52 -- v.1-3

Encyclopedia of American Political History. Jack P. Greene, editor. New York: Scribners, 1984.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E 183 .E5 1984 -- v.1-3

Encyclopedia of American Social History. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, Peter W. Williams, editors. New York: Scribner; Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada; New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, c1993.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HN 57 .E58 1993 -- v.1-3

Oxford Reference Online: History. <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SUBJECT_SEARCH.html?subject=s11> [Online] Oxford University Press, 2003. (Accessed January 13, 2003). Restricted to Union College Community

A searchable and browsable collection of history dictionaries from Oxford University Press including: The Oxford Guide to the United States Government and A Dictionary of World History., A Dictionary of Political Biography.

Wells, Robert V.
A Checklist of Primary Sources for Early American History (c. 1492-1815) in Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, NY. [ Online ] Compiled by Robert V. Wells, Department of History, 2002. Available: http://www.union.edu/PUBLIC/HSTDEPT/HST116/Wells/colsoc/ (Accessed 19 September 2002).

Shelf list by call number, LC followed by Dewey followed by Gov. Docs., with q and f in order. Not all oversized items or those in Special collections have been noted as such. Where collected works are available, not all individual titles have been noted. The William and Mary Quarterly frequently includes documents in its issues. Completeness not guaranteed. Manuscript collections in Special Collections may not be included here as they do not appear in the catalog.

Atlas of American History. New York : Scribner, 1984.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Atlas G 1201 .S1 A8 1984

Statistical Sources

U.S. Bureau of the Census
Historical Statistics of the United State: Colonial Times to 1970.. Bicentennial Edition. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HA 202 .A385 1976

Biographical Sources

American National Biography <http://www.anb.org/articles/index.html> [Online](Accessed January 13, 2003). Restricted to Union College Community

Portraits of "more than 18,000 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation," with thousands of illustrations, more than 80,000 hyperlinked cross-references, links to select web sites, and powerful search capabilities.

Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1928.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E 176 .D56

Citation Guides and Style Manuals

Style manuals and citations guides illustrate how to cite book, journal, and other research sources, including materials found in online databases and on the Web according to the conventional format of a particular discipline. Subject-specific citation guides are listed below, and a complete listing appears at Reference Sites: Citation Guides and Style Manuals.

Chicago: Turabian Style Guide. [ Online ] Available: http://www.lib.usm.edu/~instruct/guides/turabian.html

Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources. [ Online ] Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger. http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/

Library Materials > Books: LC Class Number Guide

Books in Schaffer Library are arranged by Library of Congress Class number. Class numbers are searchable in the Web Catalog and browsable in the Stacks and Reference Collection.

D 1 - 1075 History (General)

E 151 - 740
United States (General)

E 174.5 United States - History - Chronology

Browse the Shelves by LC Class Number

Library Materials > Finding Primary Source Materials in Schaffer Library

Schaffer Library's Books, Government Document, Videos, Web sites, etc.: Library Web Catalog. Click here to reach the Library's computer catalog. Searching examples are given at each "portal", e.g., author, title, subject, and keyword.

Book locations: Click on the link below "location" and a map showing the book's location by floor and specific area will pop up.

Other individual libraries' catalogs -- Follow this link (through the Schaffer Library home page) into the catalogs of some Capital District libraries as well as into those of major research universities further afield.

CaDiLaC Online -- This link leads to the online union catalog of many of the libraries of the Capital District. Because it is "live", some listings display whether books are currently on the shelf or charged out. Periodical title holdings information is also available. Log-in as "guest".

Library Materials > New Acquisitions

The New Acquisitions List (residing on the Library Catalogs page) is generated on the 10th of each month and includes items added to the library's collections for the previous calendar month.

New Acquisitions List ( History - General )

Course Related Materials > Research by Subject

Find electronic and other information by broad subject area. The Research By Subject pages identify more general "Library Materials" for that subject area (including Reference Sources (in print and online), Books by LC Class Number for browsing the shelves, New Acquisitions in that subject area, Periodical Subscriptions, and Senior Thesis / Senior Project information. There is a listing of "Course-Related Materials" (including Research Guides and a Blackboard link), as well as a selection of "Electronic Materials" such as Databases & Indexes, Selected Websites, Alerts for keeping current in the subject area. Finally there is a "Contacts & Connections" component which identifies the Department Liaison, tells how to arrange a Bibliographic Instruction session, and concludes with a link to the Departmental Home Page. Links to news and current events, government documents, statistical data, and a "Researchers Tool Kit" are also located here.

Research By Subject: History

Course Related Materials > Practicalities

Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery Follow this link to place an Interlibrary Loan request. There is also a fuller description of the Interlibrary Loan service available.
PLEASE NOTE: You are reminded that it is required to check the Online Catalog (for books) or the two lists of Periodicals Titles (for journals with articles you need) before ordering on Interlibrary Loan. It will save you considerable time for every reference that you find available here on the shelves or in electronic format.
Direct Access (CDLC) Card
Follow this link (through the Schaffer Library home page) to get further details. The card is obtained at the Circulation Desk.

Hours, Directions, and Maps to Local Libraries
From the above site through the Library's home page, one can conveniently learn the way to travel to nearby libraries, if necessary.
Schaffer Library's hours, procedures, and services
(and anything else about the Library you need to know...)

Off-campus access
Access to the paid-subscription sources listed is limited to workstations with Union College IP addresses. Therefore, a student wishing to use all the links on this page from off-campus will need to apply at Information Technology Services for an account on the Virtual Private Network. Such an account enables off-campus users to have full access, even to the paid subscriptions.

Course Related Materials > Blackboard

Faculty using Blackboard are encouraged to incorporate links to Library resources (specifically the Research by Subject pages and the appropriate course-related Research Guides) into the Blackboard course pages. Your Departmental Liaison or Bibliographic Instruction Contacts can assist you.

Electronic Materials > Databases & Indexes

Schaffer Library provides to range of general and subject specific electronic databases. These databases offer full-text access to articles or library holdings information. The following databases sometimes lead to full-text articles and sometimes are designed to tell you which journals are held here in Schaffer Library. But, some do neither. Therefore, to check whether (and where) a title is to be found in the Library's collections, it is necessary to check both of the Periodical Titles lists on our Web Catalog page. Important: If you are searching from off-campus, see the above Note on Off Campus Access about Virtual Private Network accounts.

Databases & Indexes > History

Electronic Materials > Selected Web Sites for Primary Source Materials

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
http://memory.loc.gov/
Online access to 7 million digitized primary source items from more than 100 historical collections maintained by the Library of Congress.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/major.htm
A variety of online documents from the Yale Law School site.

History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course On The Web
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/
Developed by American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. This site serves as a gateway to Web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents and threaded discussions on teaching US history. Primary source materials are searchable by keyword or topic.

Library Research Using Primary Sources
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/PrimarySources.html
The University of California Berkeley Library offers an extremely useful introduction to the subject of incorporating primary source materials into a research project, including an annotated online guide to Primary Sources on the Web.

American Civil War Home Page
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/
"The American Civil War Homepage gathers together in one place hypertext links to the most useful identified electronic files about the American Civil War (1861-1865)."

Historical Text Archive
http://historicaltextarchive.com/
The Historical Text Archive (HTA) originated in 1990 as an anonymous FTP site in response to the need of historians to have an electronic storage and retrieval site and to demonstrate the advantages of such sites for the study and teaching of history. " Includes Select Topics, Topical History, and Resources.
A Hypertext on American History: from the colonial period until Modern Times
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~welling/usa/revolution.html
The main body of this hypertext comes from An Outline of American History." Documents, essays, biographies, presidential information, etc.
The United States History Index
http://www.ukans.edu/history/VL/USA/
A sub-set of the WWW Virtual Library - History: Central Catalogue. Comprehensive coverage, including Chronological Periods, Historical Topics, and Reference Sources.

History: American and British
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/history/history.shtml
This excellent site by Rutgers University provides guides to original resources, general history portals, and full-text document files.

Colonial American History and the Early Republic to 1812
http://web.uccs.edu/~history/index/colonial.html
The History Department at the University of Colorado has brought together an outstanding collection of resources on American history up to the War of 1812. Special attention is given to the history of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans.

Electronic Materials > News and Alerts

Tools for tracking recently published articles.

The New York Times: College > Arts & Humanities > History [ Online ] The New York Times. Available: http://college.nytimes.com/guests/directory/Arts_&_Humanities/History/ (Accessed January 14, 2003)
Provides full text access to recent articles of interest to students and teachers of history from The New York Times.

Contacts and Connections

Departmental Liaisons: Tom McFadden & Ellen Fladger
For information on resources, services, collections, and book ordering for your department

Bibliographic Instruction Contact
For information on scheduling course related instruction session or faculty training session

Department Home Page

Blackboard

Created by: Gail Golderman, Electronic Media Librarian, Schaffer Library, Union College

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