Historiography - Afro American Studies Research Guide

For books at UMass, use the Five Colleges Library Catalog and click on the UMass link. Be as specific as possible in your searching. Start with a subject search (use keyword if subject yields no results). You can use broad categories to browse for sub-topics or to later limit (by date, words in subject or words in title) for more focussed results.

TIP: Use WorldCat and Other Library Catalogs when UMass and Five College system are not sufficient. Use the same Library of Congress subject headings above.

Databases (Journal indexing and online journals. Once you have a topic, this is where you search for articles on that topic.)

Tips:

From off-campus locations, an OIT Computer Account is required to access licensed databases.
Use the Database Searching Log to keep track of your searches and search strategies.
Use RefWorks to manage your citations and create your bibliography.
After you've run a search, use the button (if the database has it) to retrieve articles or to be taken directly to Interlibrary Loan, so you can order the article if UMass does not have it.

Academic Search Premier A multidisciplinary database with many literature, linguistics and anthropology journals. Citations can be saved to a folder and exported directly to RefWorks.
African American Biographical Database Full-text books on African American lives and culture.
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century - Starting with the Freedom�s Journal in 1827 and continuing in chronological order with the monthly addition of new text, this database plans to ultimately contain the complete text of the major African American newspapers published in the United States during the 19th century. Currently contains the following newspapers: Freedom's Journal, The Coloured American, The North Star, The National Era, Provincial Freeman, Frederick Douglass Paper, and The Christian Recorder. This material was written by African Americans for African Americans.
America: History and Life Citations and abstracts for journal articles, dissertations, and book reviews relating to United States and Canadian history. Citations can exported directly to RefWorks.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index In ISI Web of Science, an index to scholarly journals which can be searched by topic, author, source, address or by cited reference. The Arts and Humanities Citation Index covers archaeology, linguistics, architecture, literary reviews, art, literature, Asian studies, music, classics, philosophy, dance, poetry, folklore, radio, television and film, history, religion, language, and theater.
Black Thought and Culture Contains 619 sources with 246 authors which includes the nonfiction published works of leading African Americans. Includes many writings by Zora Neale Hurston, including "What White Publishers Won't Print." Also includes a few pieces by Toni Morrison.
Biography Resource Center Brief biographies from a variety of reference sources.
Book Review Digest - Citations, abstracts and excerpts of reviews of books, as published in periodicals.
Contemporary Women's Issues Full-text articles from periodicals relating to women and women's issues.
Dissertation Abstracts/ Digital Dissertations - Citations and abstracts of doctoral and some maters theses, mostly completed in colleges and universities of the United States and Canada. Full text access to UMass dissertations.
Ethnic NewsWatch Full-text articles from the newspapers, magazines and journals of ethnic communities in the United States. Most articles are in English, but many from Latino periodicals are in Spanish. Citations can be exported directly to RefWorks.
Expanded Academic Index ASAP Similar to Academic Search Premier (see above) However, no direct export to RefWorks.
Historical NY Times The entire New York Times, searchable, in image files. Time Period Covered: 1851-1999. Citations can be exported directly to RefWorks.
International Index to Black Periodicals Indexing and abstracting of 150 African, American and Caribbean periodicals, with full text of forty core journals.
JSTOR (full text) Scholarly journals from many disciplines. From the earliest issue of each journal to between two and five years prior to the present. Therefore, does NOT contain very recent scholarship. Citations can be exported directly into RefWorks.
Project MUSE Full-text articles from scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences published by Johns Hopkins University Press and a few other publishers; searchable by journal issue, author, and keyword. Citations can be exported directly to RefWorks.
Reader's Guide Retrospective Citations to articles in 600 popular U.S. magazines. Time Period Covered: 1890-1982. Citations can be saved in a text file and imported into RefWorks.
Web of Science Allows multidisciplinary searches combining arts, humanities, social science and science. Good for seeing who cited whom. Good for academic book reviews. Citations, abstracts, and other information can be saved in a text file and imported into RefWorks.

Internet Resources

Reserves

Click here for Reserve Books and Paper Copies of Articles and eReserve articles for classes (when available).

Citation Style(s)

Note: The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries offers a campuswide subscription to RefWorks, a citation management software that creates and automatically formats bibliographies in various styles, including APA and MLA.

Scholars in the Humanities (including English, Comparative Literature, Art and History) generally favor the MLA style outlined in:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 2nd. ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1998. Ref. and Reserve PN147 .G444 1998

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Prepared for Afro American Studies 691C: Historiographical Methods in Afro-American Studies, Fall 2006. Professor John Bracey
Library guide created by Isabel Espinal, Librarian for Afro American Studies
Last updated: 11/2/06


	August 8th 2008 \| Complete Hours W.E.B. Du Bois Library • 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library (ISEL) • 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Learning Commons • 8:00 am - 5:00 pm