LibGuides: HIST1992 Honors Workshop for Prospective Thesis Writers: STARTING YOUR RESEARCH: FINDING HISTORICAL SOURCES

INTRODUCTION

The Brown University Library has in its holdings a wealth of material for historical research. Uncovering this material can be something of a challenge. Some formats (books, databases) are more readily discovered and user-friendly than others (microform). This guide is intended to suggest strategies and pathways that can be used to identify research collections that are most appropriate to historical topics.

See, also,

Diversity and Inclusion Collections at Brown

Researching American Conservatism

Researching Slavery and the Slave Trade

Oral History Projects

Finding and Using Images

KEY BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR SECONDARY RESEARCH

America: History and Life
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1954-present; article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada.
American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies
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1990-present; ABSEES covers North American (U.S. and Canadian) scholarship on East-Central Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. It contains bibliographic records, some with full text links, for journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, online resources, and selected government publications.
Bibliography of British and Irish History
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55 BC-present; the Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History, available online from 2002 to 2009.
Hispanic American Periodical Index (HAPI)
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1970-present; HAPI is an online source for information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Included are complete bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works, and other materials appearing in over 400 key scholarly social science and humanities journals published worldwide.
Historical Abstracts
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1954-present; article abstracts and citations of books and dissertations on the history of the world from 1450 to the present. Excludes the U. S. and Canada.

MAPS AT BROWN

Hay Maps (John Hay Library)
An unusual compilation of more than a thousand diverse and interesting maps representing a wide variety of periods, topics and world geography. Do a "word" search of JOSIAH for "hay maps" to pull up a browsable list of titles; add the name of a country or region to focus your search on a particular geographical area. Some maps have been scanned and may be viewed in the Brown Digital Repository
Map Room (Sciences Library, 8th Floor)
Primarily post WWII and USGS maps
Maps at the John Carter Brown Library
Maps of the Americas through 1825, along with world atlases that include American content

STATE HISTORICAL JOURNALS

Most state and local historical societies have now transferred the electronic backfile of their signature journals to JSTOR (linked below). Others rely on home-grown database systems for backfile management. If you cannot find the journal you are seeking in JSTOR, check the official website of the relevant historical society for information on where electronic copy, if any exists, might be found.

JSTOR
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Provides image and full text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history,

FINDING AND USING MICROFORM RESOURCES
AT THE ROCKEFELLER LIBRARY

Many research collections at the Brown University Library are available for use only on microform -- a pre-digital technology for preserving, distributing and storing research materials on film, fiche or opaque card stock. Microform collections require the use of a specialized machine reader which magnifies the image so as to render it readable.

Microform collections and machine readers are available to researchers on Level B of the Rockefeller Library. A state of the art machine reader on Level B allows researchers to capture an image either as a printed paper copy, or as a digital image which can be stored on a USB memory stick. Paper copies can be charged to your Brown card; for digital copies, you will need to bring your own memory stick.

Microform collections can be difficult to search successfully in JOSIAH due to the format of the catalog record. To identify microform collections in the holdings of the Brown University Library, we recommend that you do a search for "microform [subject]", using the drop down menu to limit the search to "Books+," in the VuFind search box on the Library's homepage.

DIGITAL PRIMARY DOCUMENTS

Some examples of primary documents that have been digitized as database collections:

State Papers Online, 1509-1714
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State Papers Online, Parts 1 through 4, incorporates the official crown records Domestic and Foreign (including Scotland and Ireland), along with Registers of the Privy Council, for the reign of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs from Henry VIII through Anne (1509-1715).
Colonial State Papers
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Incorporates material from the America and West Indies series of the official State Papers, Colonial, as abstracted in the Calendar of State Papers, dating from 1574 through 1739. NOTE: Includes C.O. 1 in its entirety, but only abstracts for other material in the America and West Indies series

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Dictionary of National Biography
2004 edition; an illustrated collection of 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2001.

American National Biography Online
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The American National Biography offers portraits of more than 18,700 men and women from all eras and walks of life, whose lives have shaped the nation. More than a decade in preparation, the American National Biography is the first biographical resource of this scope to be published in more than 60 years.

HISTORICAL DATA

Online Historical Population Reports (University of Essex)
Provides online access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937.
Statistics South Africa
In 2011, South Africa conducted its third national census since the return to majority rule. For background see South African History Online