SHASTA COLLEGE LIBRARY 11555 Old Oregon Trail  *  PO Box 496006  *   Redding, CA 96049-6006

Course: HIST 17A
Instructor: Curt Rice, Instructor's web page, American History to the end of the Civil War Period
Library Contact: Carolyn Salus Singh

Locating Information: Books

Locating Information: Articles and Databases

Useful Internet Links: American History

Citing Your Sources: MLA Style

Extended Education Services

Shasta College Library Information

• Favorite History Reference Books

This list is a mere sample.  Browse these call numbers on the reference shelves and book stacks for additional titles.
Biography
• Dictionary of American Biography [Reference E176 .D563 1990]

• 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 Revolutionby 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Historical Documents & Statistics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 Historyby 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 ]
• Locating history videos:
• Select Library Catalog from the Library's web page.
• Click on Search/Home and then click on Or Switch to Power Search.
• Enter your search term in the words or phrase box.
• Scroll down and select VIDEOCASS from the type box.  Click on Search. Over 40 titles are retrieved.
• Repeat search with different search terms.
• Online eBooks are electronic versions of printed books.  The Shasta College Library's eBook collection is purchased through netLibrary and includes more than 18,500 titles.  These are available at no charge to the College's registered students and staff.  The Internet also hosts collections of free ebooks.  These are usually older works no longer protected by copyright.

 

Registration for a NetLibrary Online eBook account must be completed from an on-campus computer but the eBooks may be used from any where at any time. To create an account,  visit the Library and choose Online eBooks from our home page.  Ask for help at Reference!

• Locating history Online eBooks:
• Select Library Catalog from the Library's web page.
• Click on Search/Home and then click on Or Switch to Power Search.
• Enter  in the words or phrase box.

Scroll down and select Online Book from the type box.  Click on Search.
• Repeat search with different search terms.
• Online eBook is read by clicking on the URL button in the Full Details box.

Why databases? If you are seeking information that is up-to-date or on a subject that is not well covered in the Library’s book and video collection, you can try journals, magazines, and newspapers. The Library subscribes to nearly over 50 premier online databases.  These databases draw from a variety of sources including reference books and journal articles that appear simultaneously in print.  Some even contain primary source documents.

• American National Biography
• 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

The Shasta College Library recently expanded its subscription to the Ebsco family of databases. This service includes tweny general interest, professional, and academic databases that contain the full text of articles or links to the articles online.
You may search multiple Ebsco databases simultaneously.  For most history topics, select at least:
• Academic Search Premier
• Masterfile Premier
Other potentially useful Ebsco databases for history topics include:
• Military & Government Collection
• Religion and Philosophy Collection

To find a refereed article: Click on Advanced Search, scroll to  Limits, and click on Peer Reviewed. To find a primary source: Click on Advanced Search, scroll to  Limits, and click on Publication Type, select Primary Source Document.

•   SIRS Knowledge Source

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. Government.
• SIRS Government Reporter has links to: Historic Documents and National Archives Documents

• National Newspapers (PROQUEST), Special Collection PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS

Includes full text articles from the New York Times Archives back to 1851
• Go to National Newspapers (Proquest)
• Click on Collections
• Click on Proquest Historical Newspapers
• To narrow to a particular date
• Click on Advanced Search
• Enter your search terms and scroll down to Select Publication Date
• Enter date or range of dates and click ADD
Note: A Library Card is required to access most databases from off campus. For information about acquiring a Library Card see "How do I get a Library Card?" on the Library's Frequently Asked Questions web page.

•  Librarian's Internet Index (LII)
Anybody can publish anything on the web.  How can you rapidly find reliable information? The LII is a classified list of hundreds of web sites. These sites have been previewed by librarians (and if you can't trust a librarian, who can you trust?) and are regularly updated.  Try searching on a few topics, both broad and narrow.  For example, to browse general US history topics, Scroll down to History and click on U.S.  Below is a sampling of the nearly 100 sites found:
• 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 andcontinuing into current times. Includes inaugural addresses, diary extracts, treaties, letters, speeches.
• 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 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.

Books

• The official guide for this style is:

Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed.  (Reference Desk LB2369 .G53 1999)
• Another helpful (if not official) book is:

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

Websites
• Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Guide (official)
• Online (companion website to Andrew Harnack's above mentioned book)
• Guide for Writing Research Papers based on MLA Style (Capital Community College)
• Modern Language Association (MLA) Style: examples (Monroe Community College)
• MLA Style Guide:examples (University of Southern Mississippi)
• Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgment (Dartmouth College)

• Current hours are posted on the Library Hours web page.  Come visit!
• All of the resources listed on this page are available via the Shasta College Library web site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.