History
Research & Instruction Librarian
vmoran@macalester.edu
Getting Started with History
Historical research relies on a wide variety of sources, both primary & secondary, including unpublished material.
Primary Sources
First-hand testimonies from sources who witnessed or experienced an event firsthand.
- Examples include: a letter, newspaper article, a photograph, a diary, or other ephemera from the time period being studied.
- Found in public records & legal documents, minutes of meetings, corporate records, recordings, letters, diaries, journals, drawings.
- Located in university archives, historical societies, and within private institutions or museums.
Secondary or Scholarly Sources
These are the peer reviewed articles and scholarly books that historians write after they have worked with the primary sources and consulted other secondary articles or books.
- Can be oral or written
- Secondhand accounts of events
- Found in textbooks, encyclopedias, journal articles, newspapers, biographies and other media such as films or tape recordings.
Strategic Searching
Before you start searching for resources, pause to think about what exactly you are searching for:
- Write down key words, phrases, names, and dates that might relate to you topic.
- Brainstorm synonyms or words with related meanings.
- Think about historical language as well as modern. How do you find historical terminology? Try searching the Oxford Historical Thesaurus, which is embedded in the Oxford English Dictionary tool.
Pro tip: as you find primary and secondary sources, see what language they use, and add new terms to your list to help you refine additional searches!
Best Bets
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Index covering world history (excluding the United States and Canada). It includes hundreds of history journals and books, plus useful features such as the ability to search by time period.
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Index of scholarly journals, books, and dissertations covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada from before European contact to the present.
- eBooks (Gale) This link opens in a new windowSearch across subject-specific reference encyclopedias.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new windowResource of reference materials such as dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. Provides database-wide searching, subject searching across sources, and individual title searching.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowAccess to general and subject-specific reference books (encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations and proverbs). Provides a graphics-based Concept Mapping option for topic exploration.
The Information-Literate Historian by Call Number: Stacks - Level 4 D16.2 .P715 2019ISBN: 9780190851491Publication Date: 2018-05-31The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students is the only book specifically designed to teach today's history students how to successfully select and use sources--primary, secondary, and electronic--to carry out and present their research.
The Historian's Toolbox by ISBN: 1138632171Publication Date: 2019-12-11The Historian's Toolbox introduces students to the theory, craft, and methods of history and equips them with a series of tools to research and understand the past.
The History Student Writers' Manual by Call Number: Stacks - Level 4 D13 .H4147 1998ISBN: 9780138747282Publication Date: 1997-10-10Brief, yet comprehensive, this user-friendly text/reference provides history students with practical advice about how to improve their writing and study skills while learning about history.
Schedule a Meeting with a Librarian
Have questions about the research process? Don't struggle, reach out to a librarian for help! Students interested in research support can book a meeting with a librarian to:
- Narrow down research topic ideas
- Find background information
- Save time getting started with your research
- Use the library’s collections as well as worldwide and web resources
- Choose databases for discipline-focused research
- Learn more efficient searching method
To make an appointment, reach out to a subject librarian specializing in your topic.