Trexler Library | Muhlenberg College

Reading Seminar: The Reformation

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

American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (Trexler Library Reference 016.9 C946 1995).
A well-known bibliography covering a wide range of historical topics.

Bio-base (Trexler Library Reference Desk microfiche)
A master index to biographical dictionaries in Trexler Library.

Cambridge Modern History (Trexler Library Reference 909 C178)
A good example of a multi-volume collective history.

Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to 2000 (Trexler Library Reference 306.09403 E56o)
Signed articles. Invited authors.

Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World (Trexler Library Reference 940.203 D515e)
Signed articles. Invited authors.

Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (Trexler Library Reference 270.603 O98e) ***RECOMMENDED***
Signed articles. Invited experts on the history of the Reformation.

Online library catalogs of primary and secondary resources (i.e. monographs/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.

Primary Documents via Subscription Databases at Lehigh University

Early English Books Online
The collection comprehensively documents the English Renaissance and centuries following to 1700. 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. Sample

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.

JSTOR
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Articles A to Z
A subscription database. Includes extensive full text, scholarly.

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. . .

Historical Abstracts ***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 European history. Some full text links.

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. A guide offering an overview of the Chicago style for both a) footnotes and b) a bibliography is included here.

With special attention to history sources, see this Chicago style guide.

For additional assistance, try Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/), a reference management software that allows you to capture and manage bibliographic citations and then input them into MS Word. Here are directions for this software.

Annotated bibliography

For help in writing annotated bibliographies, visit Purdue's Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/) for a definition of an annotation and proper format. See also Dickinson College's Chicago style guide .