Recommended search directories

To find rated web sites, try web directories like Librarian's Index to the Internet (http://lii.org) and LookSmart (http://www.looksmart.com/).

tip: Because these directories are highly selective, cast a wide net. Search on broad terms: "epidemic" or "influenza" or "epidemic and history."

Selected criteria:

• Authority of site source/host
• Legibility of document
• Accuracy of document
• Editor's notes
• Descriptive notes
• Maintenance
• Contact information
• Meets expectations
• Substantive content

Two sites that meet many or all of these criteria are Relief of Pain and Suffering (http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/biomed/his/painexhibit/index.html), an exhibit sponsored by the libraries of UCLA, and The Living City (http://www.tlcarchive.org/htm/home.htm), a medical history project at Columbia University.

The National Library of Medicine is a good starting point, providing reliable primary documentation in the form of Images from the History of Medicine (http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/) and Exhibitions in the History of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/exhibition.html). Another highly recommended site for its scholarship and searchability is the Philadelphia Historical Digital Image Library (http://jeffline.tju.edu/archives/phdil/phdil.html). See also the Public Health Image Library (http://phil.cdc.gov/Phil/default.asp) sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control. The Library of Congress also has Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/mdbquery.html), though the images on the screen may be too small for immediate viewing. A site containing thousands of primary texts and images on disability is the Disability History Museum (http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/).

A directory of primary text sites is found at Medical History on the Internet (http://www.anes.uab.edu/aneshist/medhist.htm). The site is not exclusive to American history, and some links do not offer primary documents up front; a few of the links that do emphasize the U.S. and include primary documents are the Breath of Life Exhibit (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/breath/breathhome.html), the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine (http://www.swsbm.com/homepage/), and the Emergence of Modern Medicine in 19th Century America (http://www.cl.utoledo.edu/canaday/quackery/quack-index.html).

Epidemics receive some attention in this directory. See the Cholera Epidemic of 1873 (http://www.uab.edu/reynolds/cholera.html) and Yellow Fever and the Reed Commission (http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/yelfev/tabcon.html).

The premier locator for primary documents in American history is American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html), sponsored by the Library of Congress. Search by keyword, and limit to desired format or collection. A simple search on "medicine" brings up many documents on a variety of diseases and treatments from earlier times.

See also Medweb Plus (http://medwebplus.com/search.html), a searchable database of medical sites that often include a historical component. Search example: "cholera."

Poole's index to periodical literature, 1882-1908 (Index shelves, Level A) and Readers' guide to periodical literature, 1900-1997 (Index shelves, Level A) index U.S. magazines, some of which will be held in Trexler Library. Consult the guide Trexler Library Periodical Holdings by Decade (reference desk) to find out what the library has from a particular time period.

Trexler Library subscribes to the online index  19th Century Masterfile, found at Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding ArticlesDatabases & IndexesListed Alphabetically.  This index covers the New York Times and several magazines, all from the 19th century, many of which Trexler Library has full text in its print and microfilm collections.

Magazines from earlier times have on occasion been scanned and loaded onto the web, as they have been at Cornell University's Making of America (http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/). Use in conjunction with a print index, such as the aforementioned Poole's or the Reader's Guide.

TTrexler Library holds a wealth of government documents, in print, fiche, and online. Documents published prior to 1976 are indexed in the Monthly Catalog (index area, level A). Those published since 1976 are indexed in the Trexler Library Catalog (path: Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library) Finding Books).  Search example: "hiv and history."

Historical statistics of the United States (Statistics Ref. 317.3 U58ah, next to the Trexler Library Reference Desk) is a standard for all manner of statistics dating back to colonial times. Another option is the Statistical Abstracts of the United States, dating back to 1886 ( Govt Docs C 3.134:886).

Or try Mortality Statistics and Vital Statistics of the United States, 1910 to present, (Govt. Docs HE 20.6210). See also Fedstats (http://www.fedstats.gov/).

A reliable online index for scholarly journal articles and books dealing with medical history is the History of Medicine portion of PubMed (http://www4.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/), a database from the National Library of Medicine. To use, first select "LIMITS" from the main PubMed page, and then limit to subsets: "History of Medicine."
The items indexed in this database can then be ordered through Interlibrary Loan, (path:  Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library) Finding BooksILL Book Request).

Use of the PubMed database is facilitated by the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings Guide (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html). Use this guide to look for subject headings on your topic. Try a search on "epidemics," for example.

Another choice for more current history, say of AIDS/HIV, is the U.S. Government's Combined Health Information Database (http://chid.nih.gov/), which indexes publications from the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Try a search on "AIDS and epidemics," for example.

Trexler Library subscribes to several online indexes that are particularly useful for finding scholarly journals and book chapters on environmental history.  These indexes, some with full text, can be found by following the path Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding ArticlesDatabases & IndexesListed Alphabetically.  One reliable online index for scholarly journal articles and books dealing with medical history is the America History and Life database.  Another resource likely to be useful is  the standard index to social science journals, SocAbs.  See also Academic Search Premier and Health Source.

The Trexler Library Catalog (path: Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library) Finding Books) can prove useful for medical history topics. Try a keyWORD search to bring up all records on a particular topic, or to combine terms. Example: "disease and american."



To expand your book search considerably, try WorldCat; follow the path Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding BooksWorldCat. WorldCat is a powerful search tool for books on any subject. Use WorldCat in conjunction with Interlibrary Loan. From within WorldCat, click on the "ILL" icon that appears on any book record and fill out the required fields.

Optionally, use PALCI for rapid delivery from PA and NJ libraries such as U. Penn, Rutgers, and Carnegie Mellon. Follow the path: Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding BooksPALCI.

Many web sites that provide secondary historical comment are in fact cursory in content, and scarcely documented. On the other hand, scholarly sites tend to be
--affiliated with an academic institution,
--offer content that has been published in print beforehand, and
--undergo peer review.

One example of quality secondary resources on the web is the doctoral dissertation The American Discovery of Alcholism 1933-1939 (http:www.roizen.com/ron/disshome.htm). See also Secret Fallout: Low-Level Radiation from Hiroshima to Three-Mile Island.

A mixture of scholarly and popular, and primary and secondary, materials (including some statistics!) can be found at the Karolinska Institutet's History of Disease Site (http://www.mic.ki.se/HistDis.html). See also Karolinska's directory (http://www.mic.ki.se/General.html) to medical sites.

For tips on citing print and electronic sources in a bibliography according to the Chicago (Turabian) style, follow the path Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Research HelpCitation Guides.