The following is a selected list of resources for starting research in History.
To search for books, you need to use the library catalog. Depending on how much time you have, there are additional options beyond our holdings within Kellogg Library.
Books at Cal State San Marcos
Library Catalog
Search our local collection of about 250,000 books.Other Options
Browse the Book Stacks
Sometimes, just looking through the shelves can turn up works you would not have considered otherwise. Using the Library of Congress subject system, History is generally shelved in the C through F call numbers. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia provides a list of the subclasses in these areas so you can see how this is organized.Circuit (1-3 day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.Special Collections in Other Libraries
You may find a catalog entry or finding list online that tells you that an item or collection exists, but it may not have been digitized and if rare or fragile will be held 'Special Collections'. This means you might not be able to borrow the materials, but have to visit the collection for access. To locate archive and manuscript collections, use NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections.)
To look for articles in journals, you will need to start with a research database. The following databases provide abstracts of articles from thousands of journals and other sources, often providing full-text. You can also browse a list of electronic journals for history available through our catalog.
Some databases do not offer
full text of the articles. Use the
button
to check our other resources for full text.
Most Useful
Also Useful
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One-stop shopping for quality resources on the web. Check the Primary Sources and Online Primary Documents pages for more.
Directory Of Open Access Journals freely-available full text online journals.
UNESCO Archives Portal: Primary Sources Online Archivists and other digital collection builders are encouraged to publish links to their sites through this wide-ranging portal. Note that some sites have a "popular" icon which appears to mean they get high numbers of visits, rather than the content is not scholarly.
Learning to Do Historical Research: A Primer for Environmental Historians and Others
An exceptionally well-done site and not just for the historian researching environmental history!Historian's Toolbox: Skills for History Majors
A tutorial brought to you through a collaboration of CSU librarians and history faculty.Using Manuscripts and Archives: A Tutorial
From Yale University, so the examples are specific to Yale, but very helpful.Ancient World Mapping Center
Maps for Students (work in progress)BBCi Ancient History
History 'lite'; useful for some topic ideas.History Toolkit
Geared towards the general novice history researcher, an especially helpful page is "How to Read 18th Century British-American Writing".Style Guides
Examples of how to cite common sources.Is it Scholarly?
A guide to the features of scholarly publication.