Course: History 301: Writing and Research in History
Topic: The Sixties in the USA
Fall 2008 -- Dr. Peter Cole

Librarian: John Stierman – jp-stierman@wiu.edu
Leslie F. Malpass Library, Office 219
Phone: 298-2756
Office Hours: Monday: 2-4; Tuesday: 3-4; Friday: 11-12.

Off-Campus Access Library Internet Resources: Most of the libraries' databases are proprietary (owned by third parties). As long as you are on campus, the database providers assume that you are a WIU student. If you are off-campus, the providers require proof of enrolment. If you want to access library databases off-campus, be prepared with your student id # or your ecom username and password. Call the reference desk at 309-298-2700 or 800- 413-6544.

Library Catalogs and Subject Headings

WestCat/I-Share
An online catalog of the University Libraries’ books, periodicals and other library materials. Easy access from the library homepage (http://www.wiu.edu/library). Click on the “Find Books” link. If WestCat does not have what you need, search I-Share, a catalog of 76 libraries, mostly academic, in Illinois. To request a book from a non-WIU library, click on “Request” at the top of the page. Remember to enter 21711 plus your student ID number.
WorldCat
One of the databases available from FirstSearch. Bibliographic records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century. Includes 52 million bibliographic records. If you learn how to use this tool, you will be able to tap into a huge amount of bibliographic information, including many historical documents. Use the Library of Congress Subject Headings to refine searches. To find primary sources, use the subject headings "sources."

General Subject Searches for Time Periods

Politics, Parties, Protest, Rights

Culture, Society, and Behavior

Groups of Peoples as Subjects

Mass media and visual culture

Specific Events as Subjects

Reference Works -- Chronologies and Encyclopedias

Scholarly Journal Indexes/Abstracts

America: History and Life, 1964-
Indexes and abstracts scholarly periodical articles in history. Covers North American history from ancient times to the present. Click on the Online Databases link on the library’s homepage. Note that the presence of a full-text link does not mean that WIU has the full-text version. Includes book and media reviews.
Humanities International Index, 1926-
Covers all aspects of the humanities. EBSCO.
Sociological Abstracts
Index to journals, books, and conference papers in sociology. Includes significant coverage of historical topics and events from a sociological perspective

Scholarly Journal Archives

J-STOR
JSTOR offers researchers the ability to retrieve high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. The journals archived in JSTOR span many disciplines. Over the summer the University Libraries acquired more J-STOR collections. For information on the University Libraries J-STOR collections visit J-STOR collections at your institution. JSTOR articles are heavily footnoted which often point to primary sources.
Project MUSE
Provides full-text to over 100 scholarly journals. Use it to update J-STOR titles. Limit your search to those journals subscribed to by your institution.

Determining Full-Text Access


Find It

When you see this button in a bibliographic record or at the end of bibliographic citation, click on it to determine full-text availability. By clicking on the Find It! button you are engaging the libraries Peridocials Holdings List (PHL). The PHL shows the WIU library holdings: full text, paper copy (usually located on the 3rd floor of Malpass Library, and unavailable (go to Interlibrary Loan/ILLIAD).

Google Tips

Google
Google is unique. It "indexes" the web in a way that the most relevant pages appear first. At this point in time, the WWW does not allow subject searching or a controlled vocablulary, features that are built into all of the library's proprietary databases. Google does have an advanced search screen which allows title, domain, and url searching.

Internet Resources

Bibliographies

The American History Highway: A Guide to Internet Resources on U.S., Canadian, and Latin American History (REF/E/16.5/A46)
The History Highway: A 21st Century Guide to Internet Resources (REF/D/16/117/H55)

Selected Sites Relating to the 1960s

Black Panther Newspaper Collection
Selected articles from the Black Panther.
Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement
The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States,
Famous American Trials - "The Chicago Seven" Trial, 1969-1970
Free Speech Movement, Student Protest U.C. Berkeley, 1964-65
Includes oral histories, journals, legal proceedings, contemporaneous journalism, FSM newsletters, books, pamphlets, minutes of meetings, government documents, and more.
Imaginative Representations of the Viet Nam War
Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
May 4th Collection
The Sixties Project
Includes a primary document archive.
The Whole World Was Watching: An Oral History of 1968

Finding Primary Source Material

Dissertation Abstracts (1861- ).
Selected full-text. The more current, the better the chance that full text is available.
Gerritsen Collection
Greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world (according to the creators of the database). Full-images of articles and books about women dating back to the 16th century. Limit the search to the intended dates.
Historical Chicago Tribune, 1849-1984
This database delivers every page of every issue from cover to cover, with full-page and article images in PDF. It offers access to nearly 135 years of a newspaper intimately tied to the development of Chicago and the growth of the Midwest region and nation. Includes display & classified ads; comics & cartoons; photos, maps, & graphics; and editorials & commentary in addition to news articles.
New York Times Article Archive
For early issues of the New York Times, you may consult the microfilm set on the Third Floor of the Malpass Library or try your luck with the New York Times Article Archive. According to the Times' website, articles in the public domain are free. Premium articles are for sale. Use the Article Archive as a free index, if nothing else.
Readers’ Guide Abstracts, 1890-
Readers' Guide Abstracts is a database containing comprehensive indexing and abstracting of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada. The abstracts average 125 words in length.
WestCat/I-Share
An online catalog of the University Libraries’ books, periodicals and other library materials. Easy access from the library homepage (http://www.wiu.edu/library). Click on the “Find Books” link. If WestCat does not have what you need, search I-Share, a catalog of 76 libraries, mostly academic, in Illinois. To request a book from a non-WIU library, click on “Request” at the top of the page. Remember to enter 21711 plus your student ID number. Below are listed a few primary sources in WestCat and in the Malpass Reference Collection:
WorldCat
One of the databases available from FirstSearch. Bibliographic records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century. Includes 52 million bibliographic records. If you learn how to use this tool, you will be able to tap into a huge amount of bibliographic information, including many historical documents. Use the Library of Congress Subject Headings to refine searches. To find primary sources, use the subject headings "sources."

Library of Congress Subject Headings for Primary Sources

Note: these subheadings will not retrieve all possible primary sources but they are a good way to start.

Primary Source Collections

Citing Your Sources

Diana Hacker’s A Pocket Style Manual features three popular formats: MLA, APA, and Chicago. Of the three listed, Chicago is most common for history. For special instructions on how to cite Internet sources, see Hacker’s A Pocket Style Manual, Fourth Edition, pages 174-175. You can, of course, always consult The Chicago Manual Style, 15th ed (located at the Reference Desk). For Internet sources, see Chapter 17. The Reference Staff has created handouts on the three popular styles.

RefWorks
To manage your citations, you might consider learning how to use RefWorks. It is citation management software that is compatible with most of the University Libraries's databases. Ask me how to set up a personal account and begin filling folders with citations. You will find RefWorks on the WIU Libraries list of databases. RefWorks school code is rwwillinoisu.
Persistent Links
"Persistent Links" connect users directly to a library database or article by clicking a link embedded in a webpage. Persistent Links can be useful when creating syllabi, online bibliographies and other research and information tools.
TinyURL
Shorten that long URL into a Tiny URL. Useful for making citations to online sources.

Library Survey

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