Trexler Library | Muhlenberg College

The African-American Experience I: to 1896

Need help with your research? Contact:

Kelly Cannon
Outreach and Scholarly Communication Librarian
Humanities & Business Subject Specialist
phone: x3602
email: kcannon@muhlenberg.edu
IM (AIM, Yahoo, MSN): refcannon
Reference desk IM: talktotrexler

Reference works

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (Trexler Library Reference 973.0496073 E56o)

Encyclopedia of World Slavery (Trexler Library Reference 306.362 R696h)

Online library catalogs of secondary and primary resources (i.e. books and government documents)

Trexler Library Catalog
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library) > catalog.
Catalog of all books and documents in Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College.

WorldCat ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Database > Most Popular > WorldCat
Catalog of books and documents in libraries throughout the world. Watch especially for the AREA LIBRARIES designation. Use E-ZBorrow for faster interlibrary loan.

E-ZBorrow
NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > ILL > E-ZBorrow
A catalog of books and documents in the libraries of PALCI, to which Muhlenberg College belongs. Submit interlibrary loan requests here for rapid delivery.

Open-access digital archives (primary documents)

American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html) ***RECOMMENDED***
Digital archive from the Library of Congress. See the entire collection. See especially African-American Odyssey, Broadsides and Printed Ephemera, George Washington Papers, etc.

Pennsylvania State Library Digital Archives (http://205.247.101.31:2005/cdm4/search.php)

Primary Documents via microfilm at Trexler Library

Black Culture Collection
Subject guide and microfilm reels available in the Information Commons room, level A, Trexler Library. Contains numerous primary documents related to 19th century life of Blacks freed and enslaved.

Primary Documents via CD-ROM at Trexler Library

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Sample
Available at the Trexler Library Information Services desk. Contains the records of trans-Atlantic slave ship voyages from 1660 to 1867.

Primary Documents via Subscription Databases at Lehigh University

Early American Newspapers
Sample
Contains 200 significant 18th and 19th-century American newspapers including the paper of record, the Pennsylvania Gazette. NOTE: To access, you will need to visit either of Lehigh University's two libraries (Linderman or Fairchild Martindale) in person, using the 2-3 public access PCs located near the reference desk at either library. Inquire at the front desk for assistance. No downloading. Email the documents, or print to the public printer. No apparent fee.

Driving directions (http://www3.lehigh.edu/about/maps/packerdirections.asp) to Lehigh University. Map (http://www3.lehigh.edu/about/maps/default.asp) showing Linderman and Fairchild Martindale libraries.

Website navigation to Lehigh's database website.

Periodical articles (secondary) that may contain references to primary documents

general indexes with full text. . .

Academic Search Premier
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Articles A to Z
A subscription database. Good starting place for journals, and includes the full text of about 3000 journals. Limit to "peer reviewed" to find only scholarly articles. Back issues of journals begin as early as 1990. Recent issues may not be included yet, due to publisher agreement. Journals held in Trexler Library are marked accordingly.

Omnifile (WilsonWeb)
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Articles A to Z
A subscription database. Includes extensive full text, from both popular and scholarly periodicals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/)
Nearly 3000 open-access peer-reviewed journals sponsored by educational institutions and other donors.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com)
An open-access web crawler that looks for content it identifies as "scholarly." Emphasis is on books and journal articles. Intended as a "federated search" to search across disciplines (weighted toward sciences and social sciences). Not always full text. Check our Journal Locator (see above) to see if Muhlenberg has access to the full text.

subject-specialty indexes. . .

America History and Life ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Articles A to Z
(http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/articles/databases/alphabetical.html)
A subscription database. Standard index for religious studies. Some full text.

getting to the full text. . .

Once you have found the citation of a journal article you're interested in, click on the Text at Trexler link found next to the citation, or run a journal title search in Trexler Library's online catalog. NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > catalog.

articles via interlibrary loan. . .

Journal articles not found in Trexler Library can be ordered on interlibrary loan.
NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > ILL

Web search engines and directories

Google (http://www.google.com)
Non-selective. One of the largest web crawlers.

Intute (http://www.intute.ac.uk/)
The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in the database and write high quality descriptions of the resources.

Voice of the Shuttle (http://vos.ucsb.edu/)

Evaluating resources

Visit Trexler Library's Evaluating Resources page. NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website >Getting Started.

Citing sources

For tips on citing print and electronic sources, visit Trexler Library's Citation Guides for Print and Electronic Resources. NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Citation Guides.