The purpose of the guide is to help you locate secondary sources and primary sources for your research paper in this class. The guide emphasizes published sources, especially those available online.
Online resources are hyperlinked, and print resources are linked to catalog records with complete holdings information. All links are indicated by underscoring.
Below are highly recommended introductory texts on human, social, cultural, and historical geography. All examine in different ways how maps have been used to distort facts, shape perceptions, and influence history. For much more information, visit the Map and Geography Library, or contact the Map and Geography Librarian, Jenny Johnson (e-mail: jmj (at) uiuc.edu).
Useful for general, background information and topical surveys. Often include short bibliographies for further reading. Good places to begin an inquiry. The range of potentially-relevant subject encyclopedias is quite large. Let us know if you'd like help finding something.
Most of our current newspapers are now online. Some are available only as e-text, and do not preserve illustrations, advertisements, or the layout of the print editions. To view newspapers as originally published in print, use Press Display (covers most recent 60 days only) or microfilm. The UIUC Library Newspaper Database is a good title-discovery tool. For much more information, please consult the extensive Find Newspapers guide from the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library.
Searches for current magazine content typically begin in a periodical index. Some of these indexes provide direct links to content, but you will also have to use the Online Catalog and the Online Research Resources catalog to locate specific magazines. Coverage in each index varies by title, but most begin in the 1980s.
The Education and Social Sciences Library has a collection of school textbooks, including history textbooks. Consult their Curriculum Collection Guide for information on using this collection, and links to other textbook collections in the United States. The following is additional secondary material on locating and using history textbooks as primary sources:
The first twelve titles in this section are guides to reference books, originally intended for librarians. Use them to identify reference materials published between 1939 and the present, or earlier: snapshots of a library reference collection in any given year. The first four titles are geared towards British librarians, and the next eight are for American.
Below are some popular reference works for which we have extensive runs.
Published research collections are usually in microform or digital format; they bring together large numbers of source documents--more than could be published in a book--around a broad thematic issue: foreign policy, war, welfare history, and so forth.