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Resources for History 5000
Historical Research Methods
Finding Sources in the CU Boulder Libraries
- Chinook Classic Search
- PASCAL Offsite
- Primary Sources on Microforms
- Special Library Locations for Primary Sources
Finding Sources in Library Databases
If you are new to CU, it is worthwhile take some time to explore the Libraries. Physically walk around or take a virtual tour of Norlin Library to familiarize yourself with the collections and services in the building. Browse through our web site to get an overview of the resources the Libraries have to offer you.
One of the best ways to get the lay of the land is to tour our web site. Below is a selection of resources and services found on the site.
- Chinook Library Catalog (Find > Books and Media)
Two versions of the catalog are available - Chinook Plus and Chinook Classic. A breakdown of the functions and materials available in each of the versions is accessible here. Which to use is personal preference.
- Find Articles & More (Find > Articles)
List of library databases broken down by subject to help you find sources like reviews, articles, book chapters, dissertations, books, and primary sources. Databases can offer information ranging from bibliographic citations to the full-text of historical documents.
- Off-Campus Access (Using the Libraries > Connect: Off Campus Access / VPN)
If you have trouble connecting to Libraries databases from home, check out this page
- My Chinook (Using the Libraries > Manage My Account)
See what you have checked out, renew online, see held items (does not include non-Prospector ILL items), modify your PIN, save preferred searches, and set up a reading history.
- Accessing CU Materials (Using the Libraries > Borrow, Renew, Request: Non-CU Materials)
How to request books from PASCAL offsite storage, recall or page a book, etc.
- Interlibrary Loan (Using the Libraries > Borrow, Renew, Request: Non-CU Materials)
How to borrow materials from other libraries. You can search and order directly from Prospector and WorldCat.
- Research & Subject Guides (Research Assistance > Learn: Online Research and Subject Guides)
Search or browse research and subject guides in a variety of disciplines. Also contains library tutorials, database guides, course guides, and citation guides. You are currently in the History Subject Guide. My contact information is on the home page.
- Subject Specialists (Research Assistance > Meet: Your Librarian)
List of librarians responsible for collections, reference and instruction in different subject areas. You can also access subject guides for various disciplines here.
- Research Assistance Workshops (Research Assistance > Learn: Workshops and Seminars)
Get answers to your questions about your research projects or using the Libraries' collections.
- Departments, Libraries and Collections
L inks to web sites of the departments, libraries and collections in the CU Libraries, with hours and contact information where relevant.
- Libraries A-Z
Great place to go when you're having trouble finding information about something particular.
Reference, or tertiary, resources can be a great place to start when you are seeing to develop a new topic. They can provide you with an overview and background information, summarize established knowledge and important facts, key figures, and offer a list of recommended sources or readings.
Reference resources, ranging from the general to the specific, are available to you in print and electronic format and may be found by searching Chinook or looking under the heading History - General, Reference Sources in Find Articles & More. A couple of general ones that are useful for a variety of different topics are:
The ABC-Clio eBook Collection includes the full text of hundreds of reference titles on a great variety of historical subjects from a well-known publisher of history reference works. CU
Reference Universe allows you to search for terms in article titles and book indexes from a staggering array of both print and electronic reference resources and also to restrict your search to those available in the CU Libraries. CU
Tips for Developing a Search Strategy
1) Before starting your search, break your topic down into discrete concepts that represent the major aspects. These concepts will be used to develop search terms, that is, significant words or phrases (nouns or noun phrases work best) that can be used when searching in online catalogs or databases.
These terms will determine the quantity and relevance of results you retrieve. For more flexible searching, think of various ways to express these search terms - synonyms, broader terms, and narrower terms.
- Thinking of terms couched in the language of the time period you are studying is particularly important for searching in full-text, primary-source databases. The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource for finding these terms.
- Avoid using redundant or overlapping search terms, e.g. using "19th century" and "Victorian period" or using "United States" in the Making of America database
- Adding terms that represent geographical distinctions, time periods, or significant figures associated with your topic may be useful
+ Combining Search Terms
Operators
- AND: massacres AND indian AND frontier (must find all terms)
- OR: Ute OR Arapaho (must find one of the terms)
- NOT: Colorado NOT Denver (must find first term NOT second term)
Punctuation
- Phrases: “Mountain West” (must find that phrase in that order)
- Synonyms: (Ute OR Arapaho) AND massacres
- Truncation and wildcards:
atrocit* will find atrocity and atrocities
wom?n will find woman and women
The Search Strategy Process Worksheet can be helpful in helping you develop search terms for your own topic.
2) Once you've selected your search terms, think critically about what kind of information resources you need and select appropriate databases in which to search for material.
This step is crucial to efficient identification of quality primary and secondary sources for your research. Are you looking for primary or secondary sources? Covering what area of the world? During what time period?
Find Articles & More: History lists a selection of databases by type of sources and geographic area.
Finding Sources in the CU Boulder Libraries
You can locatesources for your research in the Libraries by searching the Chinook library catalog. Chinook is where you want to search for books, journals, microforms and other materials but NOT articles. Also, sometimes records for individual primary sources contained in electronic databases or microform sets are in Chinook, but most often the intellectual contents are only available in the databases themselves or through microform collection guides (see "Primary Sources on Microforms" below for more information).
As you search Chinook, you will notice that materials may have different locations in the Libraries' system, including Norlin Stacks, PASCAL offsite, Government Publications, Special Collections, and Archives. If you are wondering where these locations are, you can consult campus library maps and floor plans. Also, if you click on the location link in the Chinook record in question, you will see the location on a map and/or receive more information about it.
You can locate most relevant items in the Libraries by searching the Chinook library catalog. There are many primary sources available in the Libraries, including documents (books, letters, etc.) from the period under study, as well as electronic, microform, and printed collections of these documents published at a later date.
Do an Advanced Keyword search on your topic. (NB: doing a "Keyword" search will dump you into the Encore rather than Chinook Classic interface.) Notice that you can specify language, location, material type, and year, among other limits. You will get a mixed bag of results including both primary and secondary sources.
Try this example:
| Concept 1:
massacre* |
Concept 2:
indian* |
Concept 3:
Colorado |
Result:
primary & secondary sources |
There are several ways to limit your search to primary sources:
- Add one of the special subject terms that identify primary sources to your search: sources (more general), correspondence, diaries, narratives, pamphlets, speeches, letters, documents, etc.
| Concept 1:
massacre* |
Concept 2:
indian* |
Concept 3:
Colorado |
Concept 4:
sources |
Result:
primary sources |
- Do an Advanced Keyword search again and try limiting the dates of publication by year, entering the dates bounding your time period. For this search, leave off any special subject terms identifying primary sources from the previous search.
| Concept 1:
massacre* |
Concept 2:
indian* |
Concept 3:
Colorado |
Concept 4:
1850-1885 |
Result:
primary sources |
- Another approach is to do an Author search for books written by key participants (people or organizations) in the events you are investigating.
Please note: none of these strategies will net all primary sources, nor will their results necessarily be entirely exclusive of one another. But they will help you identify subsets of primary sources on your topic owned by the Libraries.
The following tips will help you make the most of your Chinook searching.
- Once you have found a useful item on your topic, take note of the Subjects listed in the item's full Chinook record. Click on these links to find related materials.
- If an item is checked out or we do not own it, search the Prospector consortial catalog by clicking the brown "Search Prospector to find it in another library" button that will appear on the left. You can order a copy of what you want online if is available in another Prospector library. Circulation will contact you when it is available for pick-up.
- With journals, be sure to look at the holdings information to make sure we own/offer access to the volume and issue you need. See the section on PASCAL for electronic delivery of articles.
- Use the "Journals/Serials" search to limit your search to journals, newspapers, etc. Make sure to select "All Collections" if you want to switch back to searching the entire catalog.
- Use the "Online Library Resources" search to limit your search to electronic reference works, e-books, etc. Make sure to select "All Collections" if you want to switch back to searching the entire catalog.
- Click the "Find More Resources" button to search for an item in Amazon, look up an encyclopedia article in Encyclopedia Britannica Online, search for full-text, search Google Book Search and Google Scholar, or export a citation into RefWorks bibliographic management software (for more information, see (for more information, see Organizing Your Bibliographic Citations below).
PASCAL is the Libraries' offsite storage facility. You can learn how to request materials from PASCAL by clicking on the "PASCAL offsite" location in the Chinook record.
The Libraries owns a rich cache of primary sources on microforms that cover all areas of the world. There are different ways you can find out what kinds of sources a microform collection contains, including online guides linked in the Chinook record, printed guides, and tables of contents and indexes that are included on the microforms themselves. Once you have located on which reels items of interest are located, you can order/locate those reels for viewing.
Microform scanners are available in the Research Area on the second floor of Norlin Library. You can make electronic copies of items on microforms and email or save them to a flash drive for free. Microform readers and printers are also available here and in Government Publications.
Some examples of our microform collections are:
- Colonial Discourses
- Medieval and Early Modern Women
- Western Americana: Frontier History of the Trans-Mississippi West
- The Plains and the Rockies
- The First World War: A Documentary Record
- Slavery and Anti-Slavery Pamphlets
- China through Western Eyes
Special Library Locations for Primary Sources
The following Libraries' departments contain substantial material for historical research in addition to what you can find in the regular collections. Not all of the materials in these departments have records in Chinook, so the best policy is to visit and use finding aids that may only be available on site.
- Government Information offers a rich array of primary sources, particularly, but not limited to, those relating to politics and the military.
- Special Collections will also have items of interest on a wide variety of topics. Visit their web page and reading room to discover what they have available.
- The CU Archives holds rich Western Americana collections, especially those pertaining to Colorado. The Archives offers primary sources on topics ranging from mining to the military to women.
Finding Sources in Library Databases
The Libraries makes a large selection of databases available for your research. If you are not finding relevant sources in these databases or need more material, be sure to look for additional databases on Find Articles & More: History and in other subject pages such as Biography, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and News & Newspapers.
Databases come in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging from those with the full text of primary and secondary sources to those with bibliographic citations to primary and secondary sources. Some offer full-text primary sources that are keyword-searchable and others do not (in which case you need to search records within the database to access the full text). Some indexes have links directly to full text, others use a link resolver ("Find it at CU") to help you find electronic and print full text, and still others require you to look in Chinook as a separate step to find the full text.
Though on the face of it a full-text database might always seem like the best source of information, don't be fooled! Sometimes the best source to identify primary and secondary sources on your topic may be an electronic or print index. Choose your databases based on the utility of the content/content indexed for your research, not the form in which the content is delivered.
Articles
Once you have located periodical material of interest in these databases, if they do not contain a direct link to full text, make sure you have all the relevant citation information. You can print and/or email the citations and abstracts from most of the databases. Your next steps for getting an article are offered via the "Find it at CU" link if it appears in the database:
- Search for an electronic copy of the journal by searching Chinook by ISSN under "Library Catalog"
- Search for a print copy of the journal by searching Chinook by Title under "Library Catalog." If we own the print, you can order an electronic copy by clicking on the "Request a PDF (UCB only)" button in the record for the print journal (sample record).
- If no print version is available, order an electronic copy under "Articles" through ILLiad (document delivery/ILL).
Books, Book Chapters, DVDs...
Do a Title search for the book in Chinook to see if the CU Libraries hold it.
- You can order an electronic copy of a book chapter we own through ILLiad
If we do not have the material in question, order through Interlibrary Loan by visiting this page.
If an item is not held by the Libraries, there are various ways you can obtain it through ILL. Visit this page for your basic ILL options.
Please note the amount of time required to supply the material varies. The decision if and how to loan items is up to the holding library or archive, and many will not loan unique and fragile materials. Articles and book chapters are generally faster than books because the loaning library might choose to supply them electronically.
The ILLiad interlibrary loan system is used to make many requests:
- Log in using your Identikey, and submit the required information for the items you would like to order.
- The first time you log in you will need to fill out your contact information.
- If you enter ILLiad from a database, it will often supply most of the necessary information automatically.
- Please put in a realistic date by which you can last use the material when you submit your request. If the title cannot be supplied by that date, the request will be automatically cancelled. If the title is supplied, the Libraries will have to pay for the loan whether you use it or not.
Below are some useful catalogs for history graduate students to locate ILL materials, with suggested times you should allow to receive them:
If you have searched Chinook and a book or microform is not located in the Libraries, click on the brown Prospector button in the upper right-hand corner of the Chinook search screen. This action will rerun your search in the catalogs of 20+ academic, public, and special libraries in Colorado and Wyoming. If the item is found, you can order it online through Prospector. You should allow 3-5 days to receive the material.
CRL is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries that acquires and preserves traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery. Its records are loaded into Prospector, and you can request electronically from there. CRL's loan period is much longer than traditional ILL, and purchase requests can be made for materials that fit in with its collections.
WorldCat
If you cannot find an item in Prospector, search WorldCat. It is the closest thing we have to a national union catalog, and it contains records for diverse materials, including books, microforms, archival material, maps, and visual material. WorldCat is a wonderful resource for discovering new and obscure material on your topic. If you find material that is of interest to you, search Chinook and Prospector to be sure CU or another Prospector library does not already own it. If not, you can order the needed materials from ILLiad via a link in WorldCat that will populate the request form with data. You should allow up to three weeks to receive the material.
If you are in a database, click on "Find it at CU" and follow the "document delivery/ILL" link into ILLiad. Otherwise, go directly into ILLiad to make your request. You should allow a week to receive the material.
Still need help after trying the strategies listed on this guide? Or can't figure out how to use a particular resource? Here are some options for further assistance:
- How Do I...? helpful web guides on a variety of research-related topics
- Ask Us! email, chat, text, and phone reference services are available extended hours
- Walk-up reference services at the Research Desk on the 2nd floor of Norlin Library as well as at some branch libraries (see "Hours Staffed")
- Drop by when I am staffing the Research Desk on the 2nd floor of Norlin Library (usually Mondays 10-11am, but check here for exceptions)
- Request a research consultation at least a week in advance
Once you have found relevant material, you may wish to manage your bibliographic information using specialized software. The Libraries have subscribed to RefWorks, which is available to all CU students.
For detailed information on adding citations to the database, creating a bibliography, and more in How Do I...Use RefWorks?
