The following is a selected list of resources for starting research in History. For further assistance, contact Judith Downie, Humanities Librarian.

Books

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.)

Journal Articles

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.

Listservs and Forums

• Anahita-L
• H-Net Discussion Networks (a variety of offerings for specific history interests)

Professional Organizations

• American Historical Association (looking for career ideas? See Careers for History Majors page.)
• Organization of American Historians
• Phi Alpha Theta (student honor society)
• Phi Alpha Theta (CSUSM Chapter)

Internet

One-stop shopping for quality resources on the web. Check the Primary Sources and Online Primary Documents pages for more.  

• BUBL Catalog of Internet Resources: Ancient History
• BUBL Catalog of Internet Resources: History
• BUBL Catalog of Internet Resources: Humanities

• Directory Of Open Access Journals freely-available full text online journals.

• Diotima: Women and Gender in the Ancient World
• EAWC: Exploring Ancient World Cultures: Index of Internet Sources
• InfoUSA provides links to federal government pages on cultural, civil rights, and general US history.
• Internet History Sourcebooks Project (Fordham University) provides access to the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, Medieval Studies Sourcebook and Modern History Sourcebook
• Labryrinth (Medieval Studies) there are two versions: OLD and NEW, check them both.
• Luminaria: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century materials
• NetSerf a mixed collection of material, does offer some useful links to medieval texts and a glossary of medieval terms
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery (a large and growing number of drawings, paintings, photographs and other primary source images in collections divided by subject, time period or geography)
• Online Medieval and Classical Library provides searchable, digitized collection of early texts
• ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies is a peer-reviewed collection of articles for scholarly use, translations of medieval works and more.
• Perseus Digital Library
• UCLA Library: Online Campaign Literature Archive (Los Angeles area)

• 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.

• Voice of the Shuttle: Anglo Saxon and Medieval emphasizes literature and the study of literature.
• WWW-VL History Central Catalogue

Tutorials and Help

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.

Style Guides
Examples of how to cite common sources.

Is it Scholarly?
A guide to the features of scholarly publication.