American History and American Studies Research Guide

PRIMARY SOURCES

PRINTED GUIDES AND INDEXES

• American Diaries: an Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals (1983)
  BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 A74 1983Essay and General Literature Index
  BARNARD REFERENCE  AI3 .E752   (1900 - 1994)
  Lists essays and articles in periodicals and books published back to 1900; search by subject or author. (The online version goes back to 1985.)

• Monthly Catalog, United States Public Documents
  BUTLER REFERENCE R328.734 D5  (1895 - present)
  Begun in 1895, this is a current bibliography of publications issued by all branches of the government (both Congressional and departmental and bureau publications). Until 1976, arranged by department and bureau. Includes subject indexing. Also available online as the Catalog of United States Government Publications. Coverage begins with January 1994. Use it to link to Federal agency online resources.  

• The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women: an Annotated Bibliography(1987)
  BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 G66 1987

• Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada (ULS)
  BARNARD REFERENCE Z6945 .U45 1965
  This multi-volume set shows which libraries subscribed to which periodicals before 1965.  You may need to use it because CLIO does not show all the periodicals that Columbia has ceased subscribing to (although it does show all the current subscriptions).  When you look up a journal or magazine, the code showing that Columbia subscribed is NNC; the code for the New York Public Research Libraries is NN.  If the Union List of Serials indicates that Columbia had a subscription to a periodical, you must still check the Serials Catalog at Butler to find out the call number and whether Columbia has the volume you need. 

USING CLIO (Columbia Libraries Catalog) TO FIND PRIMARY SOURCES
For a general guide to searching CLIO, see below, under "Using CLIO"

• Primary sources in CLIO include diaries, letters, autobiographies and zines.  Look for these terms in the subject field or elsewhere in the record: Archives, Correspondence, Diaries, Interviews, Memoirs, Sources
  For example:
      Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962 --Correspondence
      Women --United States --History --Sources

• "Biography" in the subject field includes Autobiographies
  For example:
      My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin has this subject heading: Comedians --United States --Biography.

• Zines: These items in the Zine Collection at Barnard Library are identified by the call number, as well as the added subject term, Zines.
  They are primarily in the area of women's studies, featuring personal and political publications on anarchism, body image, feminism, lesbianism, parenting, sexual assault, war, and other topics.
  Search for zines using a keyword search, for example: zines and women and movie?
  If you need help, please contact the Zine Librarian, Jenna Freedman.

Other Library Catalogs:

• EDUCAT for Teachers’ College Library

• Pegasus for Columbia Law Library

• CATNYP for New York Public Library research libraries:
     Humanities and Social Sciences Library 5th Ave. and 42nd St., 212-930-0830
     Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Malcolm X Blvd. and 135th St, 212-491-2200
     Library for the Performing Arts 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, 212-870-1630

• LEO for New York Public Library local branch libraries:
     Morningside Heights Branch Broadway and 113th Street, 212-864-2530
     Mid-Manhattan Library 5th Ave. and 40th St, 212-340-0833

American Newspapers in the Columbia University Libraries
A checklist of U.S. newspapers, from 1704 to the present, arranged by state and city of publication, owned by the Columbia University Libraries.

U.S. Government Documents at Columbia
A useful guide on the Columbia Libraries Website to finding older government documents held by the Columbia Libraries 

DATABASES FOR PRIMARY SOURCES

Newspapers, Journals and Magazines

• 19th Century Masterfile
  Includes several 19th-century periodical indexes, as well as indexing of the New York Daily Tribue (1875-1906).
  Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical.
  If the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials (see above).

• Essay and General Literature Index Online
  Use to find essays published in anthologies (1985 - present). 

• Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945
  A full-text collection of periodicals and books covering the history of women from 1543 to 1945, with the bulk being from 1880-1920.

• HarpWeek
  Full text and page images of the popular illustrated 19th-century American periodical Harper's Weekly.

• JSTOR
  Full-text articles from many scholarly journals, from the first issue of each journal (including some started in the nineteenth century) up to 3 to 5 years ago.  Only the science and social science articles have abstracts, so searching in the title is the most direct search for articles in humanities journals; searching for a term in the full text of an article will often find too many irrelevant articles.

• LexisNexis
  Includes a database of Primary Sources in U.S. History, as well as full text newspapers, magazines and journals.

• ProQuest
  Online journal articles and citations, as well as the full text of the New York Times from 1851 to the present.  For the backfiles of the New York Times and other newspapers, select the collection ProQuest Historical Newspapers.    

• Reader's Guide Retrospective
  Citations to articles in popular and general-interest periodicals, 1890-1982. Click in the Readers' Guide Full Text box once you're in the database interface to search 1982-current materials, as well.

• Women's Journals in the Columbia and Barnard Libraries
  A checklist of women's magazines and journals held by the Columbia/Barnard Libraries. Displays the titles alphabetically by title, or by date. 

Archives

• American Memory
  A collection of primary source materials relating to U.S. history and culture compiled by the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program.

• ArchiveGrid
  Provides detailed collection guides to archival collections and links to digitized archival materials (was called RLG Archival Resources).

• Archives and Manuscript Collections
  This is a guide developed at Columbia listing resources you can use to try to find relevant archival collections outside Columbia. The page also provides links to many archival collections' home pages.

• ArchivesUSA
  Directory to archives and manuscript collections in the United States with descriptions of their holdings.

• Barnard Library History Research Guide: U.S. History Documents and Primary Sources
  A list of Web sites with primary materials.

• Columbia University Archives and Columbiana Library
  This Web page describes what is contained in the two collections, and provides contact information.  Looking for Archives and Manuscripts? explains how to find archival materials at Columbia.

• Making of America
  A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, at the University of Michigan.

• Oral History Research Office at Columbia University
  Provides a guide to the collection of the Oral History Research Office, as well as links to other oral history internet resources.
  See also: The Oral History Collection of Columbia University  (BARNARD REFERENCE  Z1361.C6 C64 1979), a catalog of the collection published in 1979.

SECONDARY SOURCES

USING CLIO TO FIND BOOKS OR JOURNALS (NOT ARTICLES IN JOURNALS)

• CLIO includes the holdings of Columbia libraries and Barnard Library, as well as those of the Health Sciences Library and Union Theological Seminary libraries.

• If searching for a known item, start with a title search: it's best to leave off the initial article (the, der, un, etc.).

• If not searching for a known item, start with a keyword search using terms relating to your topic: use quotes for a phrase, and ? for truncation (to find variant endings of a word).  Think of as many synonyms for your search terms as you can; put OR between them.

• Or search by author, authorized Library of Congress subject, ISBN, etc.

• To limit to books in Barnard Library, use the Pre-Select Limits or Post Limits options.

• A Library of Congress guide to call numbers is at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco. Call numbers A through N are on the first floor of Barnard Library, and P through Z are on the second floor.

• If you don't find what you are looking for in CLIO, search WorldCat, a composite of many libraries' catalogs.  After finding items that look useful, use Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan to borrow them from other libraries.

DATABASES FOR SECONDARY SOURCES
This is a small selection; many other databases may be useful for your research, and are listed on the Databases list.

• America: History and Life
  Online periodical index to scholarly journals for all aspects of American history.   Useful for finding articles about topics, but it can also lead to primary material.  Check the Documentation Field (available by viewing the full citation) to see if the article is based on primary material, etc. 

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index 
  Cited references and bibliographic information for the arts and humanities, with some links to full-text articles.  Useful for tracing who cited a given article or book, or for tracing an idea.  To search for article citations, select "General Search."  Humanities Full Text
  Citations and abstracts for articles in archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, arts, philosophy, religion, world history, and world literature.Project Muse
  Full-text articles from more than 100 scholarly journals published by university presses in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

• ProQuest
  Full-text articles from journals.  For scholarly journals, click on "Databases selected" at top, clear all databases and select PA Research II Periodicals, click on "Continue" at top, and select Advanced Search. 

Last Modified 12/18/08
Lois Coleman
Reference Librarian