Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Library open?
Online Research Databases are available 24/7  with a valid library card, through the Library's web page. Click here to find the library's hours for this semester.

How do I get a Shasta College Library card?
Every Shasta College student is entitled to a free library card.  You may obtain a card from the Library's circulation desk.

How do I know if the Shasta College Library owns the book or video I need?
Select Library Catalog from the Library's web page. If you know the title, type a few words from the title in the textbox and click on  Search. 

How can I find the Reserve Books for my class?
1.  Select Library Catalog from the Library's web page. 
2.  Scroll to the gray task bar and click on  Reserve Desk.
3. Click on Search by Instructor, enter instructor's name (in this case, Rice) and click on Instructor.

How can I find the videos on a topic?
1.  Select Library Catalog from the Library's web page. 
2.  Click on the Or Switch to Power Search button.
3.  Enter a keyword in the text box.  Scroll down to Type, select VIDEOCASS: Videocassette
     and click on Search.

What's the difference between primary and secondary sources?
The 5th ed. of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers defines  primary research  as "the study of a subject through firsthand observation and investigation."  Examples of primary sources include statistical data, historic documents, original works of art, interviews, laboratory research, and surveys.  Secondary research is defined as "the examination of studies that other researchers have made of a subject."  Secondary sources might include books about an event, journal articles, webpages, films, and videos.  Most college papers draw on both primary and secondary sources.
 

Dictionary of American Negro Biography  by Rayford Logan [Reference E185.96 .D53 1982 ]

Encyclopedia of American Biography by John Garraty [Reference CT213 .G37 1974]

Reference Library of American Women by Jennifer Mossman [Reference CT3260 .R44 1999]

Dictionaries
Dictionary of American History [Reference E174 .D52 1976 ]

The Oxford Companion to American History by Thomas Herbert Johnson [Reference E174 .J6 1966]

Encyclopedias
American Eras by Jessica Kross [Reference E169.1 .A471979 ]

Encyclopedia of American History by Richard Brandon Morris [Reference E174.5 .M847 1970]

Encyclopedia of the American Revolution by Mark Mayo Boatner [Reference E208 .B68 1966]

The Reader's Companion to American History by Eric Foner [Reference E174 .R43 1991]

Historical Documents & Statistics

Great Documents in American Indian History by Wayne Moquin [E77.2 .M66 ]

The Great Documents of Western Civilization by Milton Viorst [CB245 .V5]

Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 
United States. Bureau of the Census [Reference HA202 .B87 1975]

Witness to America : An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today edited by Stephen Ambrose & Douglas Brinkley [Oversize E173 .W78 1999 ] 
 

General Reference Center Gold [on campus]    [off campus]   is a broad database, strong in current events, with some coverage in the humanities.  Some American history titles include: 
       American Heritage
       American History
       American Historical Review
       Black Renaissance
       Cobblestone
       Historian
       History Today
       Journal of American History
       Journal of American Ethnic History
       Journal of Southern History
       Journal of Women's History
       Military History

American National Biography  [on campus]    [off campus]     contains biographies, written by distinguished scholars and writers, of more than 18,000 Americans who died prior to 1996.  The database also Includes nearly 2,000 illustrations from the Library of Congress.  The powerful search engine supports keyword, subject, and name searching. 

EBSCOHost     [on campus]    [off campus] is another general interest database.  Search commands and coverage differ slightly from General Reference Center Gold.  One of EBSCO's premier features is the ability to  limit a search to refereed articles: Click on Guided Search, scroll down to Special Limiters, and click on Peer Reviewed.  Another feature unique to EBSCO is the Expert Search option of limiting to primary sources.

SIRS Knowledge Source  [on campus]    [off campus]  like General Reference Center Gold and EBSCO, provides access to full-text documents from newspapers, magazines and  journals. This resource also includes access to thousands of full text publications, documents and graphics from agencies, departments, and commissions of the U.S. Governmentment. 
 

AmDocs: Documents for the Study of American History- http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html 
A directory of primary resource documents. Searchable by time period, beginning with 1492 and
continuing into current times. Includes inaugural addresses, diary extracts, treaties, letters, speeches.

American Revolution Home Page - http://webpages.homestead.com/revwar/files/INDEX.HTM 
This timeline covers the events leading up to the war.  Includes biographies, events, documents, miscellaneous statistics and anecdotes.

Intelligence in the War of Independence - http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/warindep/frames.html 
This site, sponsored by the CIA,  tells the history of the use of intelligence by the United States during the Revolutionary War. Contains information on the Committee of Secret Correspondence, the Committee on Spies, secret writing, codes and ciphers, biographies and a bibliography for further study. 

A more specific, keyword search on slavery history retrieved the following:

Africans in America - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html 
This site (companion to a PBS series) tells the history of slavery in the United States.  It includes images, historical documents, biographies, and contemporary and modern commentaries. 

A search on history statistics retrieved 45 sites, the following among them:
Nineteenth Century Documents - http://www.furman.edu/~benson/docs/ 
A collection of nineteenth century United States primary source material, including documents, editorials,
speeches, and articles. Includes: Early National Politics; Slavery and Sectionalism; 1850s Statistical Almanac.

Sometimes plagiarism is accidental, sometimes it's intentional. Since the student has full responsibility for the content and integrity of his work, both are considered academic dishonesty (cheating!) and violate the Shasta College student code of conduct. Careful note taking and documentation of resources are your best tools for avoiding  plagiarism.  For more about research, note taking, documentation, and writing, follow this link to the Nuts and Bolts of College Writing website.  Modern Language Association (MLA) style is the most commonly used citation standard on the Shasta College campus.   To obtain guidance in using MLA Style, select Help from the Library's Web Page. Click on How to Cite Resources and then click on Modern Language Association.  The same information can be found in The MLA Handbook 5th ed. at the Library Reference Desk [Ref LB 2369.G53 1999]. Please use the most current MLA as this best covers ever changing electronic resources. 

Online resources are diverse in their scope and format.  This diversity provides for myriad research possibilities and an equal number of documentation challenges.  Uniformity is one of the hallmarks of MLA style, yet how does one cite consistently when online resources don’t adhere to prescribed standards?  Do your best to credit your sources and provide enough information so that you and your reader can locate the materials for future reference. MLA suggests that your Works Cited entries contain as many items from the following list as are relevant and available. 

1.  Name of the author, editor, compiler, or translator (if available and relevant), alphabetized by last name and followed by any appropriate abbreviations, such as ed. 
2.  Title of a poem, short story, article, or other short work within a scholarly project, database, or periodical, in quotation marks 
3.  Title of a book, in italics or underlined 
4.  Name of the editor, compiler, or translator of a book (if applicable and if not cited earlier), preceded by any appropriate abbreviation, such as ed. 
5.  Publication information for any print version 
6.  Title of the scholarly project, database, periodical, or professional or personal site (in italics or underlined), or, for a professional or personal site with no title, a description such as home page 
7.Name of the editor of a scholarly project or database (if known) 
8. Version number (if not part of the title) or, for a journal, the volume, issue, or other identifying number 
9.  Date of electronic publication or posting or latest update, whichever is most recent (if known) 
10.Name of any institution or organization sponsoring or associated with the Web site 
11. Date you accessed the source 
12.URL <in angle brackets> 
No single entry will contain all of the above but all Works Cited entries for Web sources should contain at least the following basic information: 
Author's name (last name first). Document title. Date of Internet publication. Date of access 
     <URL> 

For further assistance, consult: 
Books
Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
                     (Reference DeskLB2369 .G53 1999) 

Harnack, Andrew. Online! : A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources
                  (Reference TK 5105.875 .I57 .H364 2000) 

Websites
Frequently Asked Questions About M.L.A. Style
                  http://www.mla.org 

MLA Examples from The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center
                   http://www.wisc.edu/writetest/Handbook/DocMLA.html 

Book with two authors
Kostka, Stefan M.  and Dorothy Payne. Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to 
       Twentieth Century Music.  New York: Knopf, 1984. 

Edited book
Sullivan, Jack, ed. Words on Music: From Addison to Barzun. Athens: Ohio Univ. 
      Pr., 1990. 

Signed journal or magazine article 
Blackett, Matt. "15 Days to Better Chops."  Guitar Player 33.4  (April 1999): 
       74-78. 

Encyclopedia article
Henderson, Clayton H.  “Minstrelsy, American.”  The New Grove Dictionary of 
         Music and  Musicians.  2nd. ed. 2001. 

Videorecording
Bernstein, Leonard, perf. Musical Phonology. Videocassette. Dir. Clark Santee. 
       Kultur, 1973. (MLA) 104 min.

CD-ROM or software
Axelrod, Rise B. and Charles R. Cooper.  The St. Martin's Guide
       to Writing.  5th ed.  CD-ROM.  New York:  St. Martin's, 1997. 

Article from an online encyclopedia
"Minstrel Show."  Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Shasta College Library. 16 Feb. 
       2001  <http://library.shastacollege.edu.databases.htm> 

Note: Do not split web address (url) between two lines.

Article from an online subscription service
Okker, Patricia and Jeffrey Williams."Reassuring Sounds: Minstrelsy and the Hidden 
       Hand." ATQ 12 (2) Jun. 1998: 133-45. EbscoHost, Redding, Shasta College Library. 
       16 Feb. 2001  <http://library.shastacollege.edu/databases.htm> 

Note: An article's url is an unwieldy string of letter and numbers. Use the url for the Shasta College Library’s Online Research Databases page, as that’s how your reader will most easily link to this database and article.

Scholarly project from the Internet 
Railton, Stephen, ed. Blackface Minstrelsy 1830-1852. 16 Sept. 1999. University of Virginia. 16 Feb. 2001 
      <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/minstrel/mihp.html> 

Note: Unlike printed, published materials, websites often change and sometimes even disappear.  Include date of most recent revision (not always available) and the date you accessed the site.

Article from an online magazine
Sragow, Michael. "Black Like Spike." Salon 26 Oct. 2000. 16 Feb. 2001 
       <www.salon.com> 

Note: Include both the date published and date you visited the site.