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Professor
Phil Pajakowski
Library Liaison
Jeff Waller
Contents
Introduction
Background and Reference
Find Books
Find Journal Articles
Find Primary Sources
In Print
On the Web
How to Cite Your Sources
Subject Guide
History
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This guide is designed to support the thesis assignment in the History senior seminar. Although your individual topics may require specialized sources, the resources described below will provide an excellent gateway for your research. If you need personalized assistance with developing a search strategy or locating information, consider making an appointment with a reference librarian.
Reference materials can provide basic background information on your topic and help you identify keywords for further searching; for example, the names of important leaders, places, or events. Many reference resources provide bibliographies at the ends of each entry or volume, which will point you to additional books and journal articles worth exploring. Check for the books in our library catalog, and use Journal Finder to see if the journals are available electronically or in print. If an item isn't available here, fill out the Interlibrary Loan form to request it from another library. Articles often arrive within 3–5 days, while books generally arrive within 1–2 weeks.
The Cambridge Medieval History
Ref D117 .C3
Dictionary of National Biography (Great Britain)
Ref DA28 .D55
Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450
Ref JV22 .E535
The Cambridge Economic History of Europe
Ref HC 240 .C312
Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism
Ref DJK 6 .E53
Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to 2000
Ref HN 373 .E63
Historical Dictionaries of French History
Ref DC (various call numbers)
Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History
Ref DK41 .M6
The New Cambridge Modern History
Ref D208 .N4
Oxford Reference Online: History
This online collection enables you to conduct keyword searching on many of Oxford's reference works in the field of history.
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To find relevant books, you will probably want to try a combination of Subject and Keyword searching in the Geisel Library catalog. Start by doing keyword searching on various aspects of your topic. Use the *(asterisk) as a truncation symbol to retrieve variant forms of a word root; for example, diploma* will catch books with the words "diplomacy" or "diplomatic" in the catalog record. Use the Boolean AND to combine together multiple concepts, and use the Boolean OR to expand your search with synonyms and related terms. When you find useful books, click on the Subject Headings in their catalog records to identify additional books on the same topic.
Next, broaden your search beyond Geisel Library by doing keyword and subject searching in WorldCat, an online catalog encompassing the holdings of thousands of libraries worldwide. The best approach is to perform Subject searches on the same Subject Headings that you discovered in the Geisel Library catalog. You should supplement this with Keyword searching on keywords pertaining to your topic.
When you identify a relevant book in WorldCat, use our Interlibrary Loan service to have it delivered to Geisel Library for your use. Inside most WorldCat book records is a "Request ILL" link; to place an ILL request, all you need to do is:
- Click on the Request ILL link
- Input your name and contact information, including the S number on your student ID
- Click the Submit button
The book will be available at our circulation desk within 1–2 weeks. You will be emailed when it arrives, and you can check it out for a specified borrowing period.
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As with the book catalogs, search the journal databases using keywords related to your topic, combining concepts together using the Boolean AND and OR operators. Once you find relevant articles, examine the subject headings that have been assigned to them and conduct Subject searches on the ones that seem most potentially fruitful. Be sure to read the bibliographies of articles to identify additional sources worth tracking down.
If there is no link to the full text of the article, click on the  icon (when present) to determine whether the journal is available in the Geisel Library or in full-text via another electronic database. If the article isn't available, consider clicking on the Interlibrary Loan link to request a PDF copy of the article from another library. Articles requested via ILL will be delivered to your email inbox within about a week.
Historical Abstracts
This database provides abstracts to journal articles, book/media reviews, and dissertations with a focus on non-US history and culture (including Europe) from prehistoric times to the present. This is the best place to begin searching. Also be sure to use the Historical Period From/To limiter (down below the full text limiter checkboxes) to specify your time period of interest.
JSTOR
Search here for full-text articles from major journals in the humanities and social sciences, including a number of important history journals. Coverage is generally from the beginning of publication to within 5 years of the current issue.
Academic Search Premier
A broad index providing abstracts and some full-text of scholarly and popular journals for a range of academic areas, including history.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHSearch)
This index provides citations to more than 1,300 arts and humanities journals, which include articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, and reviews. Watch for the Saint Anselm College label in your search results, indicating that the journal is available at Geisel Library.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar applies the well-known Google search engine to a growing database of scholarly literature. Although it indexes a wide range of formats, including articles, books, and conference papers, only a fraction of the material is available in full text. It is worth searching as a supplement to the journal databases, and you can place ILL requests for items that you find.
International Medieval Bibliography ON CAMPUS ONLY
This searchable online version of the IMB indexes scholarly journals and conference proceedings in the interdisciplinary field of medieval studies. Bibliographic records are available for 4,500 periodicals. If you find a useful article, search for the journal's title in Journal Finder to see if it is available online or in the library's collection. If you find a book of interest, check the Geisel Library catalog or request it via ILL through WorldCat.
Iter
This bibliography pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700) consists of citations for journal articles, books, and more. Click on "Search a Database", then on "Connect to ITER Bibliography." As suggested above in the IMB entry, if your searching unearths a relevant source, use Journal Finder, the library catalog, or WorldCat to track it down.
Times of London Digital Archive
This database provides full-text access to every issue of The Times (London) newspaper from 1785 through 1985, except for Sunday editions. The digital archive includes not only articles but also advertisements, editorials, obituaries, and pictures. It can be searched by keyword and date range, with options to limit to specific sections of the newspaper.
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Primary sources such as diaries, letters, government documents, and old newspaper articles are invaluable for providing a first-person perspective on events and people from the past. Historians consult primary sources to gain insight into public opinion, tabulate statistics, learn the behind-the-scenes motivations of particular government policies, and read the firsthand impressions of people as they make history. To learn more about how to tap into these resources, see the guide on Finding and Using Primary Source Documents.
Note that with European countries, the majority of primary sources will be in languages other than English, so some degree of fluency in a foreign language may be required. However, you may be able to locate English translations of more prominent documents, often within secondary sources such as books about your subject.
When searching WorldCat for primary sources, combine keyword searches on your topic with Subject searches on terms such as sources, memoirs, diaries, correspondence, papers, personal narratives, or pictorial works. These words will typically appear in the subject headings of primary sources.
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The following websites offer primary-source material relevant to European history. You may also want to conduct keyword searching on your topic in a search engine such as Google. To limit your results to documents from a specific country, go to Google's Advanced Search and limit the Domain to the country's domain abbreviation (for example, .uk is United Kingdom, .ru is Russia, and .es is Spain). You can also limit by Language if desired.
Repositories of Primary Sources
A directory of online primary-source collections that lists over 5,000 freely-accessible repositories, organized by country and state. Click on the Europe categories to access links to document archives, libraries, and institutes for every European country.
Avalon Project
This massive undertaking by Yale University has digitized thousands of primary-source documents in the areas of law, history and diplomacy. Documents are organized into collections by century and topic. Focuses on US history, but also includes a healthy complement of European documents, particularly treaties and proclamations.
Cold War International History Project
This digital collection maintained by the Woodrow Wilson International Center consists of a Virtual Archive of primary documents, organized thematically into collections such as East German Uprising and Sino-Soviet Relations. It includes many memoranda, letters, and government reports on the situation in individual European countries during the Cold War era.
EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents From Western Europe
Links to online collections of digitized primary source documents, organized by Western European country.
Google Book Project
Google has digitized large portions of several major university library collections and made them accessible through their search engine. Books not under copyright (including most published before 1922, and many books published in other countries) can be read in their entirety, making this website a great resource for primary source material from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Internet Medieval History Sourcebook
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
These sourcebooks of primary source texts are generally arranged by country, period and topic for easy browsing. A vast resource for researching world history.
Voice of the Shuttle: History Resources
This website has a long history as an electronic gateway for humanities researchers, including an enormous listing of online history resources organized by country and time period.
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See the library's How To Cite Your Sources guide for resources on how to properly cite research materials. Always confirm the style required by your instructor.
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