About this guide
The strength and the challenge of IU's history collection is its breadth. This guide provides a curated list of resources, along with straightforward instructions on how to use these resources efficiently.
If you have questions as you do your research, please let me know!
Quick start resources
- IUCAT This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
IUCAT, the online catalog for all titles available through IU Libraries, is the often the best place to start a search for books and ebooks, and also includes government documents, videos, and sound recordings.
- Use broad search terms to give IUCAT the best chance of finding relevant titles.
- Use the red Request This button to have print materials delivered to the most convenient library for pick-up.
- Use the filters like Subject and Publication Year on the left side of the page to narrow your search results.
- When you find one title that looks promising, use the hyperlinked Subject headings to locate additional titles.
- Watch this brief video tutorial on searching and accessing books and ebooks in IUCAT.
- JSTOROne of the most prominent databases for research in the humanities, JSTOR provides access to a wide range of journals, book chapters, and more. Take advantage of the Related Texts suggested to the left of a search result to find more sources.
- OneSearch@IUUse OneSearch when you want to do the broadest search for scholarly articles, limit your results to Peer Reviewed. Open up All Filters to filter results by Subject.
- Oxford JournalsAccess to Oxford University Press journal content, including The Journal of American History. Use the Subject filter on the right to focus on publications relevant to History.
- Chronicling America
Access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. Search historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
- NewspaperARCHIVE
Digital access to more than 1000 historical newspapers from communities within Indiana.
- Newspapers.com World Collection
Contains full runs and portions of runs of well-known, regional and state titles in addition to small local newspapers.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Digital archive of historical newspapers. Each issue of each title includes the complete paper, cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images.
- Archives Online at Indiana University
Portal for accessing descriptions of archival and special collections held by libraries, archives and other cultural heritage units at Indiana University or affiliated with Indiana University.
- Library of Congress Catalogs
Access to the Library of Congress catalogs of over 171 million books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, music, recordings, images, and electronic resources.
- ProQuest History Vault
Archival collections documenting topics in eighteenth- through twentieth-century American history. Provides access to digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections.
- IU Libraries: Start Your SearchWhen you want to locate a source that you find in a citation or mentioned in another source, use the Start Your Search box on the IU Libraries website to get started. This tool will search IUCAT, OneSearch, and more to try to locate the title. If it can't find the citation, it will provide options to search for the source in WorldCat and Google Scholar. If you still can't find access to what you need, send me an email with the citation information.