Learning Community:
The Pursuit of Happiness - Liberal Arts
Classes:
SDV-101 - Jennifer Morrison / ENG-111 - Stephen Brandon / HIS-121 - Thomas De Mayo
Scope ll Finding Books ll Finding Articles ll History Databases ll Online Search Techniques
Types of Resources ll Journals vs. Magazines ll Internet vs. Library Databases
Evaluating Resources ll Citing Sources ll Plagiarism ll Off-campus Access
RALC - Borrowing from Academic Libraries in Area ll Interlibrary Loan Form ll Need More Help?
Scope: Covers early United States history.
Finding Print Books:
To look for books available at JSRCC Libraries, you can search the VCCSLinc Library Catalog
Sample Subject Key Words to search in catalog: United States History Colonial Period; King Philip's War; Slavery United States History; Slave Trade; Puritans New England; Indians of North America; French and Indian War; Seven Years' War; United States History Revolution, 1775-1783; Lexington Battle of; American Loyalists; Federal Government United States History; Constitutional History United States; Civil War 1861-1865, War of 1812; Creek War; AbolitionistsAntislavery; Underground Railroad; Amistad Revolt; Gettysburg, Battle; Suffragists; Women Suffrage United States History
Browse books by Selected Call Number Subject Range: E187-188 - U.S. History Colonial Period; E441-450 - Slavery United States History; E76-78 - Indians of North America (Eastern); E163-E208 - U.S. Revolutionary War; KF4510-4541 - Federalism & Constitution; E458-468 -U.S. Civil War; E449 - Abolitionists; E450 - Underground Railroad; JK1896 - Women's Suffrage
Selected Books available at JSRCC:
War that made America: a short history of the French and Indian war
Inhuman bondage: the rise and fall of slavery in the new world
American revolution (NetLibrary)
Provides access to over 10,000 online full-text books in a wide variety of subject areas including American history. To access off-campus, you will first need to create a NetLibrary account on a campus computer. From the NetLibrary home page, click on Create a Free Account in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Finding Online Articles:
Library Databases that cover American History
Comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,500 journals and a total of more than 10,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for nearly 1,000 journals (EBSCOhost)
Search Tips:
Search example:
abolition*AND john brown NOT book reviews
One-stop source of a variety of historical data. Provides integrated access to over 1,000 primary documents, nearly 100 full text journals, and 2000 images and maps. Reference sources include American Decades, American Eras, DISCovering U.S. History, and Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations. (Gale) **Access restrictions: Only 2 users at any one time so be sure to log out when done.
Search Tips:
Search example: women's suffrage
Issues & Controversies in American History
Includes biographies, timelines, background articles, photographs, and maps that augment the curriculum-based coverage of historical events. Provides the points of view on all sides of the debates as they were promulgated at the time (Facts on File Services).
Search Tips:
Search example:
Subject Index: Politics and the Presidency
More Research Topics: Slavery and the Civil War
Digital archive of full text core journals in humanities, social sciences and sciences. It contains the entire runs of over 500 hundred important scholarly journals, from the first volume up to the volumes published 3-5 years ago. JSTOR deliberately does not have the most recent volumes of the journals in order to protect the publishers’ current revenues. Each journal has a "moving wall" of 3-5 years after which the current issues are added to JSTOR. For more information and a list of journals we own through JSTOR, clicker here.
Search Tips:
Search example:
cherokee* AND "trail of tears"
Started as a not-for-profit project by Johns Hopkins University Press, it provides online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers. Full text of most journals are covered from the past 10-15 years. However, for titles common to Project MUSE and JSTOR, Muse links to articles from the back issues archived in JSTOR. (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Search Tips:
Search example:
loyalists* OR tories OR royalists OR "king's men"
Harp Week: The Civil War Era (1857-1877)
Provides access to the content and pages of Harper's Weekly. The Civil War Era section covers issues published from 1857Â1877. The database provides indexing that matches 19th century words, phrases and images with today's terminology as well as digital images of every page of the magazine. Searches can be done by occupation or role in society, or by searching any combination of four indexes: subject, illustrations, literature, and publishing. (HarpWeek, LLC.)
Oxford African American Studies Center
Provides access to the three-volume Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895, the three-volume Black Women in America, and the highly acclaimed Africana, a five-volume history of the African and African American experience. The Center is also in the process of including contents from the African American National Biography and the Encyclopedia of African American Art and Architecture. In addition, AASC offers other key resources from Oxford's reference program, including the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature and selected articles from other reference works. (Oxford)
If you have the citation of an article, how to obtain the full text?
Serial Solutions - check for the availability of electronic and print full-text journal, magazine, and newspaper articles via JSRCC Libraries.
Check local libraries
Selected Web Sites:
Citing Sources:
To learn how to compile your Works Cited list in MLA, click here.
Need more help?
Visit the reference desks at JSRCC Libraries or Ask a librarian@JSRCC!
Created on 9/14/08. Last updated on 4/3/09.