Resources by Subject - American Studies
[ DEPARTMENT ] [ E-JOURNALS ]
This web page gives guidance to American Studies students and staff on where to find subject resources in the physical campus libraries and also the “virtual” (online) library. Access to online information sources relating to American Studies is available through the links provided. They are only a selection of some of the available resources. By using search engines or information gateways such as the ones listed below, you will find many more.
FINDING YOUR SUBJECT IN THE LIBRARY
BOOKS:
Every book in the library has a classmark on the spine.
When you search the online catalogue you need to make a note of
an item’s classmark (listed under "Location") so that you can
find it on the shelves. Books about the same subject will be
shelved under the same classmark. However, books on related
subjects will also be found in other areas of the library. Each
subject is allocated a decimal number e.g. 320.973 for American
politics. Following this will be three letters taken either from
the author's surname or from the title of the book if it is an
edited work. Please note that Oversize books (which will have OS
after the classmark) are shelved in a separate sequence
elsewhere in the library.
Below is a selection of useful class numbers:
| American Art | 709.73 | American poetry | 811 |
| American cinema | 791.430973 | American presidency | 353.0313 |
| American drama | 812 | American Revolution | 973.3 |
| American foreign policy | 327.73 | Civil Rights Movement | 323.1196073 |
| American frontier | 978 | Native Americans | 970.00497 |
| American history | 973 | Vietnam War | 959.7043 |
N.B. This list is not comprehensive. Please use the Library Catalogue for further information.
PERIODICALS:
Also known as journals, periodicals are shelved
alphabetically by title. They are for reference use in the
library only.
To find out which periodical titles are available in the
Library, please check the Library Catalogue (follow the
'Library' link in the left frame at the top of this page).
Select the 'Periodical Title' search field using the drop-down
menu.
There are also many periodicals available in full text on the World Wide Web. Use the 'Find e-Journals' link in the left frame at the top of this page to search for individual subscribed titles. These can be read online on a PC (most will require your e-Library username and password). Check also the 'Electronic Journals' section below for freely-available e-journals.
VIDEOS AND DVDs:
Off-air videos: these are useful recorded television programmes
such as documentaries. They are arranged not by classmark but by
broad subject headings, e.g. AMER for American Studies, FILM for
feature films / movies, TELE for television drama and SOCI for
Sociology. They are available for 7-day loan or can be viewed in
the library.
Commercial videos or DVDs: these are classified in the same way
as books and include feature films and documentaries. The
feature film videos are arranged alphabetically; at the end of
this sequence, all other commercial videos are arranged by classmark. DVDs are arranged by classmark in a separate
sequence. These items are also available for 7 day loan or for
viewing in the library.
INFORMATION GATEWAYS
Information gateways work in a similar way to library
catalogues, in that they allow you to search for information on
a specific topic and then direct you to relevant resources on
the World Wide Web. They help you to find quality information
quickly on the subject you are looking for.
- Access Canada: The UK gateway to information on Canada is a
free-to-access portal designed for use by all those with an
interest in Canadian Studies. Subject areas include: Aboriginal
Peoples, Francophone Canada, Genealogy and Family History,
Government, Law and Politics.
- ADAM Information Gateway - Art, Design, Architecture and
Media resources gateway.
- The BUBL Subject Tree is a good starting point for all
subject areas. More specifically, there are links for The arts,
Motion Pictures, Geography, History, Literature, Music,
Political History and Political Science.
- The
Intute: Arts and Humanities database of online resources
offers a large collection of high
quality links to scholarly resources on the
web.
-
PINAKES: a subject launchpad links to many other information
gateways.
- SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway)
Online databases provide a quick way of finding journal articles that you can use in your assignments. There are 2 main types of database:
- 'Full-text' databases provide the complete journal article to read online
- 'Bibliographic' databases only provide references and abstracts (summaries).
You can access the online Library resources via the e-Library web pages. Login to the 'Search it' service to access online databases relevant to American Studies.
INTERNET TUTORIALS
The Intute Virtual Training Suite
offers free "teach yourself" tutorials on Internet information
skills for students, lecturers and researchers in many fields of
endeavour. Guided tours provide links to some of the key
Internet sites. There is also advice on tools and techniques for
Internet searching, and on how to evaluate online resources.
Tutorials which will be particularly of interest for American
Studies are:
Information Skills is an online resource developed by Canterbury
Christ Church University. It aims to provide support in
developing information skills including searching the internet,
referencing etc.
- Academic Info American Studies, a directory compiled by Mike Madin.
- American Memory is the Library of Congress’s
contribution to the US National Digital Library. It consists of
primary source and archival material relating to American
culture and history.
-
American Studies Association Home Page
- American Studies Crossroads Project
- The British Association
for American Studies Website offers a brief
introduction to the Association, the benefits of membership and
a list of personnel. There is also a free online journal,
U.S. Studies Online: The BAAS Postgraduate Journal.
- The EServer at the University of Washington
publishes texts
in the arts and humanities, broadly defined. Collections include
art, architecture, drama, fiction, poetry, history, political
theory, cultural studies, philosophy, women's studies and music
and two journals (Bad Subjects and Cultronix).
- News Link allows you access to the web sites for all national
and regional newspapers in the United States and the rest of the
world.
- The Pulitzer Prizes web site.
- The U.S. Embassy in London
You will also find more useful links on the Resources by
Subject pages for other humanities subjects:
Art & Design,
English Literature,
Film, Radio, & Television,
History &
Archaeology,
Media and Cultural Studies,
Music
and
Theology and
Religious Studies.
-
National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) collects
and reports statistical information about the condition and
progress of education in the United States and other nations in
order to "promote and accelerate the improvement of American
education." The NCES Electronic Catalog provides an
A-Z subject
listing of reports. The reports are in PDF format and can be
viewed in full using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- National Commission on Teaching & America's Future.
- U.S. Department of Education home page.
-
The World Factbook: United States provides basic reference
information on the USA, including details of economy, geography,
government, people, and transportation. Geographical information
includes area, population, maps, high and low points,
co-ordinates, boundary length, border countries, climate, land
use and natural resources.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States
is a collection of
statistics on social and economic conditions in the United
States. It contains all the information from the 1995-2001
volumes of the same name and is maintained on the US Census
Bureau web site.
-
United States geography resources on BUBL.
- US Census Bureau: State and County QuickFacts
- 49th Parallel: an Interdisciplinary Journal of North American
Studies is published electronically on the World Wide Web.
-
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
- Academic Info United States History Resources
- The American Civil War Homepage
- American Diplomacy: Commentary, Analysis and Research on
American Foreign Policy and Its Practice is another electronic
journal.
-
Cold War International History Project, a site maintained by
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
- For sites concerned with the role of the United States in
Vietnam, try the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam & Desert Storm
link on Oz's Table of Contents.
There is a section devoted to the
Cuban Missile Crisis on the
National Security Archive homepage at the George Washington
University. -
Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy: Vietnam
- Don Mabry's Historical Text Archive
-
Edwin E. Moïse's Vietnam War Bibliography
- The
Eighteenth-Century Resources - History page, maintained
by Jack Lynch, includes section on American history.
- Foreign Relations of the United States
- GPO Access (a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office)
offers many links to legislative, executive and judicial
resources.
- For links to U.S. foreign policy websites, try the
Foreign
Governments, International Relations and Diplomacy link in the
U.S. Government section of
Oz's Table of Contents.
- Links to many
General U.S. History sites are available
through Oz's Table of Contents. Headings include: From Colonies
to Revolution, 19th Century America, 20th Century America, U.S.
Government, and Presidents.
-
Hargrett Library Rare Map Home Page offers an online
collection of more than 800 historical maps of the United
States, spanning nearly 500 years.
-
History - American and British is a page maintained by
Rutgers University Libraries.
- The History Net contains a wealth of information on American
and world history. The site also provides links to 740 full-text
articles on topics such as the American Civil War, Vietnam,
World War II and women's history.
- History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 is an online, searchable,
full-text version of the 1918 Pulitzer Prize winning title by
historian James Ford Rhodes.
-
The Internet Public Library: United States (History)
Resources
- National Security Archive
- New Deal Network is an online research and teaching resource
aimed at making material on the public works and arts projects
of the New Deal freely and easily available. In the
New Deal
Document Library section you will find over 900 articles,
speeches, letters and other texts, all of which are organised by
subject, date and author.
- POTUS: Presidents of the United States contains background
information, election results, cabinet members, notable events,
and various points of interest on each of the presidents. There
are also links to biographies and historical documents.
-
Sixties Project Web Site
- Spy Letters of the American Revolution
-
United States Historical Census Data Browser
-
Viet Nam Generation:
a journal of recent history and
contemporary issues.
- Vietnam: Yesterday and Today is a page of links to study and teaching materials on the Vietnam War.
-
Academic Info: American Literature
Gateway
- American Studies Crossroads Project American Studies Web site
at Georgetown University which includes Electronic Texts and Interactive Platforms in American Literature.
- The American Verse Project, part of the University of
Michigan Humanities Text Initiative, offers an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920.
- Beat Generation
- Beat Generation Resources Page
- The Beat Museum describes itself as 'the ultimate source for all your Beat Generation needs'
- The Internet Public Library: Native American Authors provides
information on Native American authors, including bibliographies
of their published works, biographical information and links to online resources such as interviews, online texts and tribal
websites. You can browse alphabetically by author, title of book or tribe.
- Try Jack Lynch's comprehensive collection of
American
Literary Resources.
- Modern American Poetry contains biographical information
about prominent American poets, along with bibliographies of
their work, plus excerpts from analyses and drafts of poems.
Poets are listed alphabetically by surname.
-
Studies in American Indian Literatures is a freely-available
e-journal.
- The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive.
- Voice of the Shuttle - Web Page for Humanities Research;
includes resources relating to Colonial, 19th Century, modern and contemporary American literature.
- Congress.org is the official web site for the U.S. Congress.
- The Core Documents of US Democracy site provides free direct
online access to basic Federal Government documents.
- JFK Assassination Web Page
- The Noam Chomsky Archive contains the full text to many of Chomsky's major works, the complete audio to several important lectures, and numerous articles, interviews and speeches.
- Supreme Court of the United States
- US Government and Politics Resources on the Internet is an
excellent set of links maintained by the Department of Politics at the University of Keele.
- U.S. House Of Representatives Home Page Includes a schedule
of bills, resolutions and other legislative issues that the House intends to consider, as well as Committee hearing
schedules and information about the legislative process.
- The Warren Report provides online resources relating to the
Warren Commission's report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Includes the full-text of the report.
- Watergate Scandal
- Welcome to the White House Interactive citizen’s handbook plus information on the US president, past presidents and the history of the White House.
- Access Canada: The UK gateway to information on Canada
- Anywhere.ca is a Canadian search engine and directory.
-
The Canadian Encyclopedia (free online version)
-
Canadian High Commission in London
-
Canadian Information By Subject
- Canadian Journal of Communication is a freely-available
electronic journal.
- Canadian Studies: a Guide to the Sources
- Canadiana: The Canadian Resource Page
- CanLinks: A Directory of Web resources relevant to Canadian
Studies
- Inroads: The Canadian Journal of Opinion
- Selected issues from volumes 28-39 (1994-2005) of the
Journal
of Canadian Studies can be accessed in full-text via FindArticles.
-
World History Archives: The history of Native Americans in
Canada as a whole
- Academic Info: African American History
- The Civil Rights Movement
-
African American History, Impact, & Culture is a huge list of
links, courtesy of Oz's Table of Contents. There is an extensive
section on The Struggle For Civil Rights.
- Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
- The
Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford
University includes a biography of King, a chronology of his
life, as well as primary and secondary source material.
- MLK Online provides biographical information, quotes, and the
full text of speeches by or about Martin Luther King.
- Official NAACP Web Site
- Index of Native American Resources on the Internet at the WWW Virtual Library covers culture, history, art; books and articles with full-text online.
- The Internet Public Library: Native American Authors
- Native American History & Culture is a huge list of links,
courtesy of Oz's Table of Contents.
- Native American Tribes offers links to Native American
organisations and mailing lists.
- Relations Between The United States and Native Americans is
part of Yale University's 'Avalon Project'.
- Studies in American Indian Literatures
- World History Archives: The history of Native America
- The
9-11 Commission Report
- Events
of September 11: Finding Information Related to the Events
of September 11, 2001 is a site prepared by the
Reference & Instruction Department, Oberlin College Library.
- September 11, a section of
Academic Info Terrorism Studies,
is another site devoted to the events of September 11, 2001 and
all things related.
- The September 11 Digital Archive serves as both a gateway to
relevant historical materials on the Web and a repository for email messages, images, personal accounts, and otherprimary sources in digital formats.
OTHER USEFUL LISTS OF WWW RESOURCES
- The
Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British
Library
- The Internet Public Library Reference Center
- Keele University American Studies Department
- SoUSA - University of Wolverhampton Learning Resources
-
University of Central Lancashire Library
-
University of Reading American Studies Resources
ELECTRONIC JOURNALS
All the e-journals listed below are published on the World Wide
Web. This means that the full-text of all the articles from each
issue can be accessed electronically - no passwords are
required.
FindArticles is a free database containing thousands of articles from more than 300 magazines and journals, dating back to 1993. You can search for full-text articles within a specific magazine or journal, or within all the titles in a specific subject category. Alternatively, you can search the entire database.
-
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
-
American Radicalism is a special collection of e-texts
maintained by Michigan State University Libraries. Subjects
include: birth control, Black Panthers, Klu Klux Klan, Rosenberg
Case, Scottsboro Boys and Wounded Knee.
-
Archives of the West
- The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School provides access to
primary source materials in the fields of law, history,
economics, politics, diplomacy and government.
- Bibliomania contains hundreds of searchable full-text works
of classic and popular fiction, poetry, drama, short stories,
dictionaries, research and religious texts. Reference works
include Webster's Dictionary, Dictionary of Quotations and Simonds' History of American Literature.
- Booker T. Washington Papers: "A completely free and
searchable web site designed to provide researchers worldwide
with full access to the thousands of pages comprising this
14-volume printed work, originally published by the University
of Illinois Press." Included are autobiographical writings,
letters, and many other documents.
- A Chronology of US Historical Documents, courtesy of the
University of Oklahoma College of Law.
- Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
-
The Constitution of the United States of America
- Documenting the American South
- Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy: Vietnam
- Don Mabry's Historical Text Archive
- Foreign Relations of the United States
- George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
-
Hargrett Library Rare Map Home Page
- History of the Civil War, 1861-1865
- Making of America
- New Deal Document Library
- The On-Line Books Page. A comprehensive listing of links to
over 10,000 full-text books now available on the World Wide Web,
including many texts on literature. You can either use the
search facility or browse by author, title or subject.
- Spy Letters of
the American Revolution: From the Collections of the
Clements Library
- Statistical Abstract of the United States
-
The Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
- The Warren Report - full-text of the Warren Commission's report on the findings of its investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Suggestions for additional links are welcome!
Please contact
Lawrence Dean, Faculty Liaison Librarian (Arts
& Humanities)
If you have found this page on the internet and would like
information about courses in American Studies here, please click
on one of the following links:
Admissions
Undergraduate Prospectus