American Culture Research Guide
Introduction
This guide is a resource for research in American Culture . If you need help with any aspect of your research,
please contact a reference librarian (Ask a Librarian) or come to the Reference Desk.
Reference Sources
- Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture (Ref. E 169.12 E49 2001)
- Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture (Ref. E 169.1 G7555 2002)
Online Library Catalogs
- Vassar Online Catalog
- ConnectNY
Catalog of a consortium of 5 New York libraries which cooperate in fast
interlibrary loan.
- WorldCat
Database of references to books, journal titles, research reports, multimedia,
and other resources in libraries all over the country. Use ILLiad to order
material through interlibrary loan.
Indexes and Databases
- 19th
Century Masterfile
Contains Anglo-American subject indexes for periodicals of the 19th
century, as well as a number of other general and publication specific
indexes for journals, newspapers, government documents and books of
the era.
- America:
History and Life
Index to articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, book and media
reviews on history and culture of U.S. and Canada from prehistory to
the present. Includes abstracts and links to full-text in other library
databases.
- ATLA
Religion
Covers religious and theological scholarship in journals and multi-author
works. Includes citations and some full text from Religion Index One
(RIO), Religion Index Two (RIT), and Index to Book Reviews in Religion
(IBRR).
- Contemporary Women's Issues
Provides full-text access to global
information on women in over 150 countries. Indexes books, journals, newsletters, research reports from non-profit groups,
government and international agencies, and fact sheets.
- Ethnic
Newswatch
Full-text of newspapers of
the U.S. ethnic and minority press in both English and Spanish.
- GenderWatch
Full-text of publications
that focus on issues of gender in a broad spectrum of subject areas. Includes books, booklets/pamphlets, conference proceedings,
magazines, newsletters, newspapers and reports.
- International Index
to Music Periodicals
Covers nearly all aspects of the world of music, from the most scholarly studies
to the latest crazes. Includes international music periodicals from over 20 countries. Also includes retrospective
coverage from periodicals dating back as far as 1874.
- PAIS
Indexes journals, books, hearings, reports, government publications,
etc., on global public policy and social issues. Covers banking and
public finance, culture and religion, economic conditions, education,
energy and environment, health conditions, human rights, international
relations, media, science and technology, and more.
- PsycINFO
Citations and abstracts of journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports and dissertations in psychology and
psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology,
linguistics, anthropology, business, and law.
- Sociological
Abstracts
- Web of Science
Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index: references to articles in scholarly journals.
Primary Sources
- American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
ontains the full text of diaries, letters, and
memoirs written between 1855 and 1875. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the
Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also.
- American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital
Archive
- Black Thought and Culture: African Americans to
1975
Non-fiction published works of leading African Americans: monographs, essays, speeches, interviews,
journal articles, letters, biographical essays by leading scholars and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the
database. Currently contains 84 sources with 36 authors.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Digital version of every significant English-language
and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. This is a
collection in progress that is scheduled for completion in 2005. VC has a significant number of these titles on microfilm:
Microfilm 981 for Eighteenth Century Literature and Language and Microfilm 982 for Eighteenth Century Religion and Philosophy.
- Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1542-1945
Contains primary source materials in
women's history that span four centuries and fifteen languages.
- Making of America
(Cornell) and Making
of American (Michigan)
Contains primary sources in
American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Particularly strong in the subject areas of education,
psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Includes full-text of women's letters and diaries.
so includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
Electronic Journals
Finding Statistics
Web Sites
Related Research Guides
Gretchen Lieb is the library liaison to the American Culture Program. Phone:
437-5770 or send email to: grlieb@vassar.edu
|