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Library Guide for HIST 498-J: Nation and the Geographic Imagination

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.

Table of Contents

  1. Catalogs
  2. Secondary Sources
  3. Published Primary Sources

I. Catalogs

  1. University of Illinois Online Catalog. See the Guide to using the Online Catalog
  2. Online Research Resources. Access to electronic resources licensed by the University Library. Look here for e-journals, article indexes, and full text collections.
  3. I-Share Catalog. The fastest way to request materials not available here. I-Share is a union catalog covering all libraries in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). Turnaround time for requests is usually about 48 hours.
  4. WorldCat. Allows you to search the catalogs of libraries, archives, and other repositories all across the United States and the rest of the world. See our FirstSearch Quick Guide
  5. Google Books. See University of Michigan’s Google Books Search Guide.

II. Secondary Sources

Finding Secondary Sources: What Scholars Have Already Written on Your Topic

  1. America : history and life and Historical Abstracts. Article index to scholarship in history. Coverage: 1954-present. The former covers American and Canadian history; the latter covers the rest of the world. 2 files, 1 resource: search them separately or together.
  2. GeoBase. Article index to scholarship in geography, including historical geography and some social history.
  3. Web of Science. Coverage: 1970-present. A citation index: find articles that cite a known document.
  4. JSTOR. Searchable full text collection of complete back issue coverage for over 70 journals in the field of history. For more recent scholarship (1 to 5 years), use Project MUSE (below).
  5. Project MUSE. Searchable full text collection of over 50 history journals. Search JSTOR and Project MUSE simultaneously using the Project MUSE Advanced Search.
  6. Digital Dissertations (ProQuest). Citations to dissertations written since 1861. Dissertations written since 1980 include abstracts. Over 750,000 dissertations available for immediate download. See our ProQuest Quick Guide. To request copies of dissertations not available electronically, contact the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery office.
  7. History Cooperative. Searchable full text collection of over 20 journals.
  8. Google Scholar. Will need to configure: Scholar Preferences > Library Links > Find Library > Check University of Illinois and > Save Preferences.

Selected List of Secondary Sources

General Reference Sources

  1. Oxford Reference Online. A searchable, full-text collection of over 170 Oxford University Press reference works.
  2. Xref Plus. Now called Credo Reference. A searchable, full-text collection of over 270 reference works from 57 different publishers.

Cartographic Resources: Learning to Think like a Geographer

Introductory Works

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).

  1. Mapping : ways of representing the world.
  2. Maps and civilization : cartography in culture and society.
  3. How to lie with maps.
  4. Drawing the line : tales of maps and cartocontroversy.
  5. The power of maps.
Reference Works
  1. A scholar’s guide to geographical writing on the American and Canadian past. Covers political, social, and historical geography, exploration & mapping, popular images, place names, and tourism.
  2. Historical geography of the United States : a guide to information sources.
  3. Historical dictionary of world political geography : an encyclopaedic guide to the history of nations.
  4. Encyclopedia of human geography (Warf).
  5. Encyclopedia of human geography (Pitzl).
  6. Dictionary of human geography. Online resource.

Travel Writing

  1. A reference guide to the literature of travel; including voyages, geographical descriptions, adventures, shipwrecks and expeditions in 3 vols. Covers all time periods.
  2. The Traveler’s reading guide : ready-made reading lists for the armchair traveler. Covers popular literature.
  3. Travels in America from the voyages of discovery to the present : an annotated bibliography of travel articles in periodicals, 1955-1980.
  4. Literature of travel and exploration : an encyclopedia in 3 vols.
  5. The witness and the other world : exotic European travel writing, 400-1600.
  6. Voyages and visions : towards a cultural history of travel.

Other Subject Encyclopedias

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.

  1. Encyclopedia of American social history in 3 vols.
  2. Encyclopedia of race and ethnic studies.
  3. Dictionary of race, ethnicity and culture.
  4. Encyclopedia of modern separatist movements.
  5. Nationalism and ethnicity terminologies : an encyclopedic dictionary and research guide in 2 vols.
  6. Access guide to ethnic conflicts in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
  7. Encyclopedia of European social history from 1350 to 2000 in 6 vols.
  8. SAGE handbook of nations and nationalism.
  9. Encyclopedia of nationalism (Transaction Pub.).
  10. Encyclopedia of nationalism (Academic Press) in 2 vols.
  11. Encyclopedia of nationalism (Paragon House).
  12. History of Zionism : a handbook and dictionary.
  13. Historical dictionary of Zionism.
  14. Dictionary of the history of ideas : studies of selected pivotal ideas in 4 vols.
  15. Encyclopedia of the stateless nations : ethnic and national groups around the world in 4 vols.
  16. Nations without states : a historical dictionary of contemporary national movements.
  17. One Europe, many nations : a historical dictionary of European national groups.
  18. A survey of Arab-Israeli relations.
  19. Historical dictionary of Palestine.

III. Published Primary Sources

Current Newspapers

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.

  1. Access World News (NewsBank). E-text only. Over 600 domestic and 700 international papers. Time period varies by title, but mostly begins after 2000. See our NewsBank Quick Guide
  2. Library Press Display. Reproduces the layout of the original print editions. Over 250 titles worldwide. Covers the past 60 days only. Searching capabilities are unreliable, due to the speed of digitization.
  3. Newspaper Source (EBSCOhost). E-text only. Complete coverage of 25 domestic and international papers; selected coverage of an additional 260 domestic papers. Time period varies by title, but mostly begins in the 90s. See our EBSCOhost Quick Guide.
  4. Lexis-Nexis Academic. E-text only. See our LexisNexis Quick Guide.

Current Magazines

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.

  1. Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost). See our EBSCOhost Quick Guide.
  2. Expanded Academic Index (Gale/InfoTrac). See our Gale/InfoTrac Quick Guide.
  3. Periodical Abstracts (FirstSearch). See our FirstSearch Quick Guide

Historical Newspapers

  1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Chicago Tribune (1849-present), Chicago Defender (1905-1975), Los Angeles Times (1881-1985), New York Times (1851-2003), Wall Street Journal (1889-1989), and Washington Post (1877-1990). See our ProQuest Quick Guide
  2. Early American Newspapers: Series I (NewsBank). Covers 1690-1876. See our NewsBank Quick Guide.
  3. Nineteenth Century U.S. newspapers (Gale/InfoTrac). See our Gale/InfoTrac Quick Guide.
  4. UIUC Library Newspaper Database. Search for titles by country, continent, and date.
  5. Historical Newspapers Online. A research guide from the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library. This page offers our most complete and up-to-date information on availability of content in this constantly-expanding collection.

Historical Magazines

  1. Periodicals Archive Online (Chadwyck Healey). Covers 1770 to the present. Full text access to over 1.8 million articles from more than 500 periodical titles. titles. See our Chadwyck-Healey Quick Guide
  2. Periodicals Index Online (Chadwyck Healey). Electronic access to citations of over 16 million articles from more than 5,000 periodicals going back to 1665. See our Chadwyck-Healey Quick Guide
  3. Reader’s Guide Retrospective (WilsonWeb). Covers 1890-1982. The famous index to general periodical literature.
  4. American periodicals series online, 1740-1900 (ProQuest). See our ProQuest Quick Guide

School Textbooks as Primary Sources

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:

  1. Resources for teaching about Europe (1986).
  2. History in black and white : an analysis of South African school history textbooks.
  3. Ethnocentrism and history : Africa, Asia, and Indian America in western textbooks.
  4. History for their masters; opinion in the English history textbook: 1800-1914.
  5. Teaching Americans about their past : history in schools, 1880-1930.
  6. The nation, Europe, and the world : textbooks and curricula in transition.
  7. Perceptions of history : international textbook research on Britain, Germany, and the United States.
  8. The European home : representations of 20th century Europe in history textbooks.

Reference Books as Primary Sources

Finding Older Reference Books

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.

  1. Union list of reference books : a selection of four hundred reference books with locations in some metropolitan and Greater London libraries (1954).
  2. Guide to reference material (1959- ).
  3. Walford’s guide to reference material (1959- ).
  4. Basic stock for the reference library (1964)
  5. Guide to reference books / Constance M. Winchell (1951-1986)
  6. Reference books of 1938-1940.
  7. Guide to reference books (1951-1996)
  8. Guide to reference books / Isadore Gilbert Mudge (1936)
  9. A guide to reference books for small and medium-sized libraries, 1970-1982.
  10. A guide to reference books for small and medium-sized libraries, 1984-1994.
  11. Guide to reference books for school media centers (1973). “School media centers” are K-12 school libraries.
  12. Guide to reference books for school media centers (1986).

Selected List of Older Reference Books

Below are some popular reference works for which we have extensive runs.

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771- ). Search title in Online Catalog for complete holdings.
  2. World book encyclopedia (1933- ). Search title in Online Catalog for complete holdings.
  3. Britannica book of the year (1938- ).
  4. EIU Country Intelligence (1996- ). Country profiles.
  5. The Europa year book (1960-1988) and The Europa world year book (1989- ).
  6. The Statesman’s year-book (1864- ).
  7. The World almanac and book of facts (1869- ). For all holdings search title in Online Catalog.
  8. Encyclopaedia Britannica world atlas; unabridged (1942-1966).

Other Primary Sources

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.

Research Collections

  1. Empire Online. Supplements a range of primary source documents with essays, biographies, and a chronology. Can browse by topic, name, place, or broad thematic section: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, 1607-2007.
  2. Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment. Online. Coverage includes Latin America.
  3. 1492 : an ongoing voyage. An online exhibition by the Library of Congress.
  4. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Online.

Finding Aids

  1. OAIster. Item-level access to content in digital research collections; this content is often hidden from Web search engines.
  2. BUBL Information Service. Directory of academic resources on the web.
  3. INFOMINE. Directory of scholarly resources on the web.
  4. ibiblio. A directory of freely available thematic research collections on the Web.
  5. Intute
  6. Voice of the Shuttle. Directory of humanities resources on the web.
  7. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.