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Kalamazoo College Upjohn Library

History of Leisure and Recreation in America
History 217

Fall 2007

Library Web Site
History Research Guide
Ask a Librarian
reference@kzoo.edu
269 337-7152

Primary Sources | 19th Century Periodicals | Secondary Sources : Books : Articles | Websites | Citing Sources

 


FINDING PRIMARY SOURCES

What are primary sources?
Primary sources are records or objects that have survived from the past, such as letters, photographs, diaries, audio recordings, video recordings, newspaper articles written at the time of an event, buildings, speeches, scrapbooks, pamphlets, furniture, tools, household items, clothing, toys...

Explanations and Examples

Gateway Websites for Primary Sources
These sites list links to other Websites with primary source materials

  • Primary Sources in Research
    from the Kalamazoo College Library
  • OAIster (free database)
    Search engine for archives of digital resources, many primary sources, including online books and journals, audio files (e.g., wav, mp3), images (e.g., tiff, gif), movies (e.g., mpeg, quicktime), reference texts (e.g., dictionaries, directories), etc..
  • American Memory Project (free database)
    A project of the Library of Congress. Hundreds of collections! See especially Recreation and Sports.
  • Lileks.com (an "out of the box" source)
  • eBay (another "out of the box" source)


FINDING 19TH CENTURY JOURNAL ARTICLES

Online Sources for Newspapers and Journals

  • New York Times (1851-3 Years Ago) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)< about >
    A full text archive of the entire historical run of The New York Times. Includes every page of every issue from cover to cover, with full-page and article images in downloadable PDF. Contains articles, classified ads, comics and cartoons, photos, maps, graphics, and editorials and commentary.
     
  • Harper's Weekly < about >
    Full text with illustrations of Harper's Weekly from 1857-1889, searchable by keywords, by literary genre, by occupations and role in society, and browseable by date.
     
  • Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1845) < about >
    Poems, articles, and illustrations from one of the most popular women's magazines of the 19th century.
     
  • JSTOR < about >
    Full text of about 117 core scholarly journals many of which go back to the 1800s.
     
  • Making of America (free database)
    University of Michigan, Cornell University, and the Library of Congress
    A collection in the American Memory Project of approximately 1,600 full-text books and 50,000 journal articles from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
     
  • Chronicling America (free database)
    This site, from the Library of Congress, allows you to search and read newspaper pages from 1900-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
     
  • The Nineteenth Century in Print from the Library of Congress
    This collection presents twenty-three popular periodicals digitized by Cornell University Library and the Preservation Reformatting Division of the Library of Congress.
     
  • American Memory Project (free databases)
    A project of the Library of Congress. Hundreds of collections! Check out especially:

Indexes to 19th and 20th Century Periodical Literature:

Primary Sources in the Kalamazoo College Library

Use these terms in Ariadne to locate primary sources (search by subject and keyword):

  • Diaries
  • Correspondence
  • Speeches
  • Autobiographies

Local Repositories of Primary Sources


FINDING SECONDARY SOURCES

What are secondary sources?
Secondary sources analyze, restate, describe, or explain primary sources. Secondary sources are generally at least one step removed from the historical event being described. Examples of secondary sources include textbooks, biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and books and articles that interpret or review research works.

FINDING BOOKS

A Step-by-Step Guide

    1.) Ariadne
    • Search by Keyword
    • Find and Use Subject Headings
    • Browse by Call Number
    3.) WestCat - Western Michigan's catalog (also in MeLCat)
    • Search by Keyword
    • Find and Use Subject Headings
    • Browse the shelves by Call Number
    • Waldo Library: Hours and How to get to Western
    4.) WorldCat and 5.) Interlibrary Loan
    • Search by Keyword
    • Find and Use Subject Headings
    • Order item through Interlibrary Loan

Subject Headings:

FINDING JOURNAL ARTICLES

A Step-by-Step Guide

1.) Look for citations and articles

2.) Locate the journal when you have a citation

    1.) Ariadne (print)
    • Title search on Title of the Journal to locate print journal
    2.) Online Journals at K
    • Title search on Title of the Journal to locate article in a Full Text Database
JOURNAL INDEXES
Find citations to articles (secondary sources) with these indexes.

FULL TEXT DATABASES
Find full text articles (secondary sources) online with these databases.

  • JSTOR < about >
    Full text of about 117 core scholarly journals many of which go back to the 1800s.


WEB SITES

Use these points to evaluate the credibility of Websites:

1. Accuracy
How reliable is the information? Are there editors and fact checkers?
2. Authority
What are the author's qualifications? Is the publisher reputable?
3. Objectivity
Is the author trying to sway opinion? Is the information free from bias?
4. Currency
Is the publication date indicated? Is the source up to date?
5. Coverage
Does the site cover the topic comprehensively, or are there information gaps?

Sites that provide guidance on evaluating Websites:


CITING YOUR SOURCES in the Chicago Style

Chicago Manual of Style
15th ed. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Reference, Z253 .U69 2003.

Chicago Style
An online guide from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center

Chicago Manual of Style Documentation
A web site for citing electronic resources in the Chicago Style

ALWAYS consult a style manual to create citations! Do not rely on the examples on this page!

Book citation:

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America.
  New York: A.A. Knopf, 1985.

Journal Citation:

Edwards, Justin D. "Henry James's 'Alien' New York: Gender and Race in the
  American Scene." American Studies International 36, no. 1 (1998): 66-80.

Chapter in a Book:

Schlereth, Thomas J. "Country Stores, County Fairs, and Mail-Order Catalogues:
  Consumption in Rural America." In Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display
  of Goods in America, 1880-1920 edited by Simon J. Bronner, 251-300.
  New York: Norton, 1989.

Primary Sources:

Cite primary sources according to format -- unpublished manuscript, film, audio recording, etc. See the print Chicago Manual of Style for details.

See: How to Cite Sources for help in citing print and electronic resources in various bibliographic styles (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.)