Seminar: Ethnicity and Race in the Middle Atlantic Colonies
Need help with your research? Contact:
Kelly Cannon
Humanities & Business Librarian
phone: x3602
email: kcannon@muhlenberg.edu
IM (AIM, Yahoo, MSN): refcannon
Reference desk IM: talktotrexler
How do I obtain primary sources on my topic?
The Pennsylvania Gazette (library subscription) has been nicknamed "The New York Time of the 18th century," and covers a broad range of topics in the period 1728-1800.
OAISTER is a directory of digital repositories from universities and colleges in the U.S.
Google Books contains, among other texts, the Pennsylvania Archives. (Books may be translated into plain text for cutting and pasting, printed as PDFs, or interlibrary loaned in hard copy.)
HaithiTrust is non-commercial corollary to Google Books.
Google points to Mid-Atlantic Historic Buildings and Landscapes Survey, the 1798 Direct Tax Lists, both part of the Center for Historic Architecture and Design collection.
The Library of Congress's American Memory Project includes numerous online collections from the 18th century including American Notes: Travels in American 1750-1920 and Map Collections and The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online (library subscription from Alexander Street Press) contains the Diaries of Elizabeth Drinker, an 18th century Quaker woman from Philadelphia. There is considerable discussion of interaction with Indians.
How do I locate primary and secondary sources in library catalogs, and then submit interlibrary loan requests for items not at our library?
Trexler Library Catalog
Catalog of all books and documents in Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College.WorldCat
Catalog of books and documents in libraries throughout the world. Watch especially for the AREA LIBRARIES designation.
What library databases are available in the area of Colonial American history, where I can search on a topic to find relevant journal articles?
America History and Life
A subscription database. Standard index for American history. Some full text. Also links to full text in other databases.JSTOR
A subscription database. Full text articles from scholarly journals across the disciplines. Deep archive. 5 year embargo (lag) from time of publication.Project Muse
A subscription database. Full text articles from scholarly journals across the disciplines. Focus is on recent and current issues. Not a deep archive.
getting to the full text. . .
Once you have found the citation of a journal article you're interested in, click on the Get It link found next to the citation, or run a journal title search in Trexler Library's online catalog.
articles via interlibrary loan. . .
Journal articles not found in Trexler Library can be ordered on interlibrary loan.
How about citing source?
For tips on citing print and electronic sources in the Chicago style, visit Trexler Library's Citation Guides for Print and Electronic Resources. For a more complete guide to the Chicago style, visit Purdue University's Online Writing Lab.
For automated citation, try the shareware Zotero. Here is a user guide.
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Last modified: 11 January 2011
