Reference Sources

Located in the Learning Commons, on the Lower Level of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

REF E185.5 .N34 The African-American Almanac

REF E 185.96 .A45 1993 African American Women: a Biographical Dictionary

REF DT 14 .A37435 1999 Africana: the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience

REF PN 451 .D5 vol. 41 Afro-American Poets Since 1955

REF E184.O6 A827 1995 The Asian American Encyclopedia

REF ML105 .67 Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians

REF E 185 .E54 1996 Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History

REF E 185.61 .E544 1998 The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America

REF HV6322.7 .E53 1999 Encyclopedia of Genocide

Online! Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America

REF E77.P89 1998 Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Peoples

REF ML102.J3 N48 2002 (3 vols) The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

REF E 185.96 .N68 1992 Notable Black American Women

REF E 185.86 .N68 1999 Notable Black American Men

REF E184.S75 O97 2005 The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States

REF E185.5 .S83 Statistical Record of Black America

See also Afro American Studies Reference Materials web page.

Books

Search for books from Library Catalog, linked at www.library.umass.edu.


SEARCH TIPS -->When searching for information about a person, search with the last name first -->Best to be as specific as possible. (e.g. Holiday, Billie) Best to write out full name if you have an acronym (e.g. National Basketball Association instead of NBA) -->Use broad categories to browse for sub-topics or to limit (by date, words in subject or words in title) for more focussed results. --> Subject searches are often more focussed than keyword searches. But when a subject search doesn't work, try a keyword search. -->If our copy is out or if UMass doesn't have enough books on your topic, check the Five Colleges Catalog.You can connect to the Five College Catalog directly from our catalog and request Five College books online!

Sample subject searches (based on actual topics of students between 2003-2007)

African American athletes

African American basketball players

Athletes, Black

Black Power

Black Power - United States

Baraka, Imamu Amiri

Capital punishment

Discrimination in capital punishment

Discrimination in criminal justice administration

Family Violence

Family Violence -- Cross Cultural Studies

Genocide

Hip Hop

Jazz

Jazz musicians

Lee, Spike

National Basketball Association -- History

Slaves' Writings, American

Marsalis, Wynton

Winfrey, Oprah

 

Also try: Net Library - for online books

If UMass doesn't have books on your topic, or if our copy is checked out:

Five Colleges Library Catalog

WorldCat and Other Library Catalogs for searching other catalogs if you don't find books in the Five College System.

Borrow books from the Virtual Catalog and Interlibrary Loan.

Journals (for browsing and searching).

The following are some top scholarly, academic journals. These provide good examples of how "real scholars" write.

African American Review Per PS173.N4N36 and online through JSTOR and Expanded Academic Index.

Callaloo Per PS173.N4C3 and online through JSTOR and Project Muse

Black Issues in Higher Education Per LC2781.B455 and online through Ethnic Newswatch

Journal of Black Studies Per E185.5.J8 and online through JSTOR

Journal of Blacks in Higher Education Per LC2781.J68 and online through JSTOR

Souls: a Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society Per E185.5.S68

See also full list of journals in Afro American Studies.

Databases (journal indexing and online journals)

Question: How do you efficiently find good journal and magazine articles on your chosen topic?
Answer: Use the right database!

TIPS -->After you've run a search, use the button (if the database has it) to retrieve articles. -->Use the Database Searching Log to keep track of your searches and search strategies in different databases.

The following databases, from our Database Locator, are recommended for Afro Am 190 topics:

Academic Search Premier - (includes full-text journal articles) Good for scholarly journal articles. Tip: For scholarly articles, limit the search to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals in the front search screen

African American Biographical Database

America: History and Life - Scholarly article citations in American history with some full text links.

Biography Resource Center - Biographies of thousands of important people.

Black Studies Center combines several resources for research in Black Studies: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), The Chicago Defender, and the Black Literature Index. IIBP provided indexing and abstracting of 150 African, American and Caribbean periodicals, with full text of forty core journals. The Chicago Defender was at one point the most widely-read black newspaper in the country, with more than two thirds of its readership based outside Chicago.

Book Review Digest - Great for book reviews.

ERIC - Articles and reports dealing with issues in education.

Ethnic Newswatch - Full-text articles from the newspapers, magazines and some scholarly journals of ethnic communities in the United States.

Google Scholar - The same Google interface most people are familiar with -- but it searches only scholarly, academic information, rather than the whole Web. From the library website, Google Scholar is connected to our online journals and our Interlibrary Loan service, so you will not need to pay for articles as you might outside the library website.

JSTOR - Full text scholarly articles in many fields.

Lexis-Nexis - News section contains hundreds of newspapers from all over the world. Most of the articles are not scholarly. Contains contemporary book reviews in news sources. (full text)

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Sociological Abstracts - Scholarly article citations in sociology with some full text links.

Internet Resources

Warning: Keep in mind when you are researching information on the Web that anyone can publish a web page. So be sure to evaluate the information you find. Click here to read about the positive and negative aspects of the Internet.

For some great Internet sites in Afro American Studies, see Afro American Studies Internet Links page.

Hip Hop Portal
http://www.hiphopportal.net
This searchable database covers the four elements of Hip Hop:DJ's, MC's, Graffiti, and Break dance. The scope includes, books, periodicals, some a/v, and theses & dissertations.

Reserves

Click here for Reserve Books and Paper Copies of Articles and eReserve articles for Afro American Studies 190 (when available).

Evaluation

Please take a few minutes to fill out this anonymous evaluation form. You can help improve the quality of instruction by letting us know what you liked, what might be improved and what you would like to see in the future.

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Prepared for Afro American Studies 170/171 & 190
Library guide by Isabel Espinal, Librarian for Afro American Studies
Last updated: January 31, 2008