This guide is intended to help you find both print and online resources. This guide is only a starting point for your research, it is not meant to be a comprehensive list of resources. If you need further assistance, please visit the Service Desk in the library or contact your librarian, April Sheppard, at asheppard@astate.edu.
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Search for articles, ebooks, journals, books, media and more with OneSearch: | ||
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Search for books, dvds, journals and more with our Library Catalog Search: | ||
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SCHOLARLY OR NOT?
Scholarly and peer reviewed are your "academic" articles. These are the ones that deal directly with research, history, or theory. Most likely, your professor wants you to use these types of articles. These types of articles are written by scholars, experts in the field often associated with a university or an organization. Peer reviewed articles must also be approved by a group of scholars before being published to ensure that the research presented is factual and relevant. Not everyone can get peer reviewed.
Popular magazine articles are usually ones that you read for entertainment. These are usually the type of publications that you find at the grocery store checkout. Chances are if there's a celebrity on the cover, it's a popular magazine.
For a more in-depth look at the differences, please visit our Scholarly Journals guide.
MORE WORDS TO USE
One of the things you may notice when you start researching Latin American history is the changing terminology. Many of us today use the term "Latin American" or "Latino/a," but that wasn't and isn't always the case.
As George I. Sánchez stated in 1967, "The people of in El Paso and California want to be called Mexican-Americans, the rest of the people in Texas want to be Latin-Americans, the people in New Mexico want to be Spanish-Americans." During this same time, Cesar Chavez spoke about Chicano experiences.
Can you still find historical documents using just the term "Latin American"? Yes, you can - but this does not cover all of the rich history and terminology of Latin American history. Chances are if you just use the term "Latin American," you're going to be missing something. This is especially true with newspapers and other primary documents. You have to search the terms that the people of the time used.
Contact Your Librarian
BOOKS IN THE DEAN B. ELLIS LIBRARY
All books in the library are arranged by subject using the Library of Congress classification system for call numbers and subject headings. The main call numbers for American history begin with “E & F” while the main call numbers for social issues begin with "H." The basic breakdown is as follows:
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CT21 – CT9999 |
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Biography |
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E75 - E99 |
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Indians of North America |
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E151 – E889 |
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United States |
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E184 - 184.4 |
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Elements in the United States Population |
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E184.5 - E185.98 |
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African American History |
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E441 - E453 |
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Slavery in the United States. Anti-Slavery Movements |
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F1 – F975 |
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United States Local History (States) |
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F406 – F420 |
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Arkansas |
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HN1 - HN995 |
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Social History, Conditions. Social Problems. Social Reform. |
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HT1501 - HT1595 |
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Races. Including race as social group and race relations. |
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HV3167 - HV3199 |
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Social and Public Welfare. By Race or Ethnic Group. |
The numbers that follow these beginning letters relate to the narrower scope of the item. For example, American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom (E185.615 W317 2008) gives a broad view of African Americans in American history whereas Medgar Evers : Mississippi Martyr (F349. J13 W55 2011) focuses on a particular person from Mississippi.
Occasionally a totally different call number will appear. This means the item is about more than African American history and higher importance was given to the other subject when the call number was assigned. For example, Lessons from Little Rock has a call number of LC214.23. L56 R63 2009 because it is more about the right to education than general African American history. It's still an excellent book to use!
DATABASES
Databases with green 
or partially green 
icons offer some level of free, full-text articles. In most cases, you must be affiliated with A-State to view the article or on the A-State campus. Some database offer a "pay-per-view" service where you can buy an article not available for free and have immediate access. If you do not need immediate access to the article, you may also request it through Interlibrary Loan for free. Articles requested through Interlibrary Loan can take 2-5 business days to come in, depending on the lending library. You can also digital scans from our physical collection through Digital Delivery.
To view all our History databases, click here.
To view all our newspaper databases, click here.
To view all our databases, click here.
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowAcademic Video Online is a comprehensive video subscription that delivers more than 62,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.
- African American Newspapers 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
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Provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. - African American Periodicals 1825-1995 This link opens in a new windowFeatures more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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America's historical newspapers including African American newspapers. - America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new windowHistory and culture of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present.
- Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
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Topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. Collections include City and Business Directories: Arkansas, 1871-1929; Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s; and Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984. - Arts & Humanities Database This link opens in a new window
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Features hundreds of titles covering Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies. It is designed to complement the following indexes: ABM, Avery, BHA, BHI, DAAI, Index Islamicus, MLA, Philosopher's Index and RILM. - Black Life in America This link opens in a new window
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The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media. This collection offers “suggested searches” to guide students to pertinent topics from social justice, politics, arts, literature, key people, etc. - Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Newspaper collections including the New York Times 1851-2003, Wall Street Journal 1889-1989, Atlanta Constitution 1868-1929, Atlanta Daily World, Washington Post, Chicago Defender, NY Amsterdam News, St. Louis Post Dispatch 1924-2003, Communist Historical Newspaper Collection (1917 - 2013). - The HistoryMakers This link opens in a new window
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African American oral histories - preserving and sharing the life stories of thousands of African Americans, from President Barack Obama to the oldest living black cowboy to refashion a more inclusive record of American history and to educate and enlighten millions worldwide. - History Vault This link opens in a new window
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Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: NAACP Papers, Slavery and the Law, and Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War, and Confederate Military Manuscripts; Struggle for Women's Rights, Organizational Records, 1880-1990; and, American Politics and Society from Kennedy to Watergate (1960-1975); Southern Life and African American History, Women's Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library: Voting Rights, National Politics, and Reproductive Rights, Women's Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library: Voting Rights, National Politics, and Reproductive Rights. - JSTOR This link opens in a new windowMassive journal and e-book collection. Contains core scholarly journals from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication
- Latin America & Iberian Database This link opens in a new window
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Ongoing full-text academic journals that are locally published by scholarly publishing organizations and educational institutions in many Latin American countries, Spain, and Portugal. Major subject areas of study are represented, including business, science, technology, engineering, social sciences, education, and humanities. - Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
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More than 350 digital collections from the Library of Congress. Primary source materials, maps & photographs, letters, diaries, sound recordings, and historic films. - Making of America Journals This link opens in a new windowFull page images of primary resources from the Antebellum period through Reconstruction.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowCollection of scholarship focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowLarge, user-friendly collection of eBooks and scholarly journals.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
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The largest aggregated full-text database in the market today, with thousands of periodical titles and millions of full-text articles available. Includes ABI/Inform and Hoover's Company Profiles. - Race Relations in America This link opens in a new windowDocumenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
- Sabin Americana This link opens in a new window
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Works about the Americas published throughout the world from the 1500's to the early 1900's. - Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new windowEssential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
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WORDS TO USE
Art covers a wide range of topics. If you're having trouble coming up with a topic, here are some keywords you can use that might help you get started:
- Civil Rights
- Demography
- Discrimination
- Disparaties
- Diversity
- Emigration
- Equity
- Ethnic Groups
- Ethnic Relations
- Ethnicity
- Hate Speech
- History
- Identity
- Immigration
- Inequity
- Labor
- Minorities
- Movements
- Population Statistics
- Privilege
- Race
- Race Relations
- Society
- Sociology
If you want to combine keywords, use the connector AND between terms:
"Native American" AND youth AND identity
You can learn more about connectors in our Boolean Searching guide.
MORE WORDS TO USE
One of the things you may notice when you start researching African American history is the changing terminology. Many of us today use the term "African American" or "Black," but that wasn't always the case. Zora Neale Hurston wrote about the "Characteristics of Negro Expression" while Frederick Douglass wrote about "The Destiny of Colored Americans." While we wouldn't use words like "negro" or "colored" today, they are historically correct words. You may also come across "Afro-American" and "person of color" as terms for African Americans. These too also have roots in American history.
The term "African American" is a fairly recent term. The term really didn't start gaining prominence until the 1980s and didn't become "politically correct" until the 1990s. That's a whole lot of American history not tied to the term "African American." Can you still find historical documents using the term "African American"? Yes, you can. There are groups of scholars who index and list historical documents with tags and subject headings to make it easier to find, but there are limitations to what has been indexed.
Chances are if you just use the term "African American," you're going to be missing something. This is especially true with newspapers and other primary documents. You have to search the terms that the people of the time used.
