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LibGuides

U.S. Expansion to 1898

Introduces history majors to basic research library concepts (you should master before History 498). Provides both a broad overview of the source types collected by research libraries, and also lists specific sources relevant to research for this course.

What are Reference Sources?

Libraries collect and preserve the graphic records of human experience.1 Not every experience is documented, and not every documented experience is collected and preserved. How, then, can you know what part of the historical record remains for you to study? Reference sources are your map to the graphic records of human experience.

Even if every human experience hasn't been documented, and every document hasn't been preserved, there remains a plethora of sources available for the historian to study. Here at the University of Illinois Library, you have access to over 14 million printed books, 14 million microforms, 120,000 periodicals, 148,000 sound recordings, 1 million audiovisual resources, 280,000 e-books, 29,000 cubic feet of archival records, 3 terabytes of electronic records, and 650,000 maps—that's over 25 million potential primary sources for your research. Reference sources are your map to the Library's collections.


Half of one aisle at the University Library's remote storage facility on Oak Street.

Use reference sources for factual information like the date the Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law, or where in the United States Statutes at Large to find it. You can also use them to find more complex information, like marriage law in Islam. They often include bibliographies, making them profitable places to begin a research project.

Encyclopedias

What are Encyclopedias?

Encyclopedias attempt to summarize the state of knowledge in a given field of inquiry. That field of inquiry is usually defined in the title. For example, the Encyclopedia of the Mexican American War summarizes what is known about this conflict (as of the date of the encyclopedia's publication!). Encyclopedias not only give you the broad overview of the field, but they often recommend sources (usually secondary sources, but sometimes also primary sources) to consult for further research.

The following are digital collections of encyclopedias that many students have found useful:

Encyclopedias for Researching U.S. Expansion to 1898

Bibliographies, Catalogs, and Guides

A bibliography is, in its most literal sense, a list of books. Many students are familiar with bibliographies from writing research papers, where a list of works cited is sometimes called a bibliography. In libraries, bibliographies serve an additional, important function in helping patrons identify books, journal articles, and other library resources. These bibliographies are usually centered on sources about a particular subject, and are often book-length themselves. Some bibliographies run to several volumes. For more information on bibliographies, please see our guide to Bibliography and Historical Research:

A catalog is similar to a bibliography with the difference being that a catalog lists books and other resources available for use or purchase at a specific place, or from a specific person or organization. Examples are library catalogs, catalogs of private collections, and booksellers' catalogs.

Almanacs, Factbooks, Chronologies

Alamancs are sources of factual information, typically issued once a year. Some titles have been published for over 100 years, making them valuable sources of historical data as well. You can also use encyclopedia sets in a similar way: even though they are not almanacs, some encyclopedias do share with almanacs the quality of being issued regularly over time (sometimes as often as every year).

Atlases

Notes

1. Jesse H. Shera, The Foundations of Education for Librarianship (New York: Becker and Hayes, 1972): 193.