The Trexler Library: Muhlenberg College

Popular Culture in Latin America

Need help with your research? Contact:

Kelly Cannon
Humanities & Business Subject Specialist
Trexler Library
phone: x3602
email: kcannon@muhlenberg.edu
IM (AIM, Yahoo, MSN): refcannon
Reference desk IM: talktotrexler

Reference works (good for generating topics and recommended sources)

Encyclopedia of Mexico
Available by library subscription. Signed articles written by leading scholars in the field. Great for topic narrowing and for identifying the most important articles and books on a subject.

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture
Available by library subscription. Signed articles written by leading scholars in the field. Great for topic narrowing and for identifying the most important articles and books on a subject.

See also this journal for topic ideas:

Studies in Latin American Popular Culture via Academic Search Premier database

Finding primary documents

Primary documents (pictures, letters and diaries, fan sites, blogs, youtube video, and sound recordings) can be found abundantly by using any standard web search engine like Google. However, the library catalog and WorldCat (see below) can also be good sources for DVDs (those in our own collection) and any primary documents published in book form.

Authoritative secondary commentary in books. . .

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.

Authoritative secondary commentary in articles . . .

Academic Search Premier
Library subscription database. Standard index for peer-reviewed articles across the disciplines. Includes many full-text articles.

Historical Abstracts
Library subscription database. Standard index for peer-reviewed articles and scholarly books on Latin American history.

subject specific databases...

Art Full Text
Standard index for peer-reviewed articles on art criticism.

Communication and Mass Media Complete
Standard index for peer-reviewed articles on radio, television, internet, and media in general.

MLA
Standard index for peer-reviewed articles on film and literature.

RILM
Standard index for peer-reviewed articles on music and dance.

getting to the full text of an article. . .

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.

Can I search all the library databases and catalog together, in one search?

Most of the databases and the library catalog can be searched together in a new library search engine called Search Central found on the Trexler Library website. Most useful when working with narrow topics where you need everything that's available.  Several search features are missing from the original databases, like relevance, and language and peer review limiters.

Websites more likely to be scholarly...

Google Scholar

Intute
From a consortium of universities in the UK, reviews websites for purposes of higher education and research.

Citing sources in Chicago or other standard citation styles

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

For automated citation, try the shareware Zotero.

© Muhlenberg College
Last modified: 19 September 2011