Library Guides:  History 17

Rich Thompson, Instructor
Developed by Connie Fly, Librarian

The Address of this Webpage is: http://cos.edu/library/history17.htm

Reference Books - This is just a sampling of our Reference Books.

• African American Culture and History (5 volumes with Index) - Call # R 973 En56
• The ABC-CIO Companion to American Reconstruction 1862-1877 Call # R
• The American Revolution (2 volumes - Index at end of volume 2) - Call # R 973.3 A512
• The Annals of America (22 volumes with Index) - Call #  R 973.08 A613
• Colonial America to 1793 - Call # R 937.2 P986
• Dictionary of American History (12  Volumes with Index)  - Call # R 972.03 D554
• Documents of American History - Call # R 973 C734
• Talking Terrorism; A Dictionary of the Loaded Language of Political Violence - Call # R 303.603 H538

Searching for Books

COS Library Books can be located by accessing the Online Book Catalog through the library website or through specified computer terminals located in the library. The three ways to search for books in the database are:  simple search, browse search and power search as described below.

Using Simple Search (Keyword Searching)

Example of a Simple Search for Fort Sumter

In addition you can look for books on just your particular subject by going to Browse Search.   A Sampling of Subject Headings to use when researching the COS Online Book Catalog is:

• Assassination
• Boston Tea Party
• Harper's Ferry
• Presidents-United States-Biography
• Generals - United States-Biography
• Reconstruction
• Secession
• South Carolina--history
• Southern States-History-1865-1877
• United States -- History --(then select dates)
• United States--History--Civil War
• United States--History--Colonial Period
• United States--History--Revolution
• Washington, George -1733-1799
• Whiskey Insurrection

Example of a Subject Search in the COS Library Book Catalog:
United States - - History then narrow by date, etc. Hits refers to how many books the COS Library owns on that Subject.  Clicking on each Subject Heading will take you to a list of books the COS Library owns on that subject.

Periodical Indexes and Databases

A periodical index is used to find specific information in magazines and newspapers.  It is compiled by indexers who are trained librarians or subject specialists.  They read magazines articles, to determine the most important topics and people discussed in them, and list the topics or people by subject heading.  The indexer than writes a citation to identify the article and where it can be found.  These indexes come in electronic form as databases or in paper format.  The electronic form can sometimes include the full-text of the article.

Electronic Indexes (Databases)

EBSCOHost Academic Abstracts

Example Keyword Search:  "Hartford Convention"

 
The Screen above is the Result List showing citations to the articles

Paper Indexes

Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature   

The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature is probably the most popular magazine index ever produced.  Nearly every high school, public and college library in the country subscribes to it. It indexes articles in more than 300 popular magazines.

The COS Library owns it from 1890 to the present and is therefore an excellent source for doing historical research especially prior to 1980.  This Index is located on the Index Tables in the Periodicals Department on the first floor of the COS Library. 

You can find a citation for a magazine article by looking under a subject heading that describes what the article is about.  In addition to subject entries, Readers' Guide makes entries for magazine articles under the author's last name.

When you have found an entry for the magazine article(s) you want, write down the information in the citation.  Be sure to note the name of the magazine as well as the numbers following the title so you can locate the proper issue. 
The order used  is:

1. Magazine Title
2. Volume number/issue number
3. Page number
4. Date of magazine

History Magazines Owned by the COS Library

• American Heritage 1955+
• American Historical Review Jl 1955+ 
• American History Illustrated Je 1971
• Black History Bulletin 2002+ (formerly Negro History Bulletin)
• Current History 1948+
• Journal of African American History (formerly Journal of Negro History) Jl 1966+
• Journal of American History Je 1964-1992
• Journal of Modern History Se 1968+
• Journal of the West Oc 1984+
• Negro History Bulletin 1957-2001 incomplete
• Pacific Historical Review Fe 1965+

Interlibrary Loans

Copies of articles or books not available in full-text format and not owned in paper format in the COS Library Periodicals Department may be available through the Interlibrary Loan Process.  Forms to request articles and books through Interlibrary Loan are at the Periodicals Counter and the Reference Desk.

The Internet

The Internet can be useful for locating primary documents that you might otherwise not have access to. An example is
the Avalon Project : Major Collections - a wonderful site of primary source documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Includes: American diplomacy and history, Barbary treaties, Colonial charters, Mexican American diplomacy, Native American Diplomacy, and the Nuremberg war crimes to name a few you may find especially useful.

Links to various history web sites can be found on the COS Library Web Sites by Topic -History Page.

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This page was created August 22, 2005. This page was last updated: November 13, 2006
For questions and comments, please mail to: connief@cos.edu