History (Comprehensive)  Tags: history historiography primary_sources  

Reference Universe is a unique database that makes transparent both printed and online reference material that might otherwise remain hidden. It searches back-of-the-book indexes and article titles in thousands of encyclopedias and other reference works owned by Temple University Libraries.

Highly Recommended

(Use the Reference Universe link instead of this search box if you are off-campus.)

SimplyMap is a web-based mapping application with a user-friendly interface that allows researchers to quickly and easily create professional-quality thematic maps and reports using thousands of demographic and other variables. Maps can be exported as high-resolution images to word processing or presentation software; data can be selected, sorted, and compared across multiple locations to build custom reports that can be exported to a spreadsheet.

The database contains historical 1980, 1990, and 2000 census data, 2006 estimates, and 2010 projections for all geographies including census block-groups, census tracts, ZIP codes, cities, counties, states, and the entire United States. Demographic variables include population, age, race, income, ancestry, marital status, housing, employment, transportation, families, and more.

Also worth exploring is the National Historical Geographic Information Systems (NHGIS) website. It "provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2000."

The online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is a fully searchable and browsable collection of over 73,000 authoritative reference articles. Several bonus features are included in this reference tool: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus; thousands of photographs, illustrations, and sound files; hundreds of relevant videos; hot links from Encyclopedia Britannica articles to related magazine and journal articles from EBSCO and ProQuest online databases; World Data containing information and customizable charts and tables about nations of the world; Notable Quotations from historical and contemporary important men and women; and Gateway to the Classics, hundreds of works by significant writers of the Western world.

Cambridge Histories Online

This database contains digital versions of over 60 multi-volume works from the Cambridge Histories series published since 1960, including Cambridge Modern History, Cambridge History of English Literature, Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge Ancient History, and Histories of India and the British Empire, among others.

Cambridge Companions Online offers authoritative essays on various literary, religious, and cultural topics from the Companions series published by Cambridge University Press. History-related titles include:

Find reliable information about thousands of historical actors in the three databases and one Temple libguide listed below.

Brill's New Pauly is the premier encyclopedia for scholars of the ancient world. The online version includes the full-text of the published print version and is automatically updated when a new volume is published. The complete original German edition is also available online.

Question: What value lies in a reference work? Why, for example, would a researcher bother to consult a scholarly encyclopedia?

Answer: Reference books (or tertiary sources) help researchers contextualize their topics and in turn begin to ask the right questions. Reference books set the stage for more efficient database searching; researchers cannot elicit relevant search results if they don't know which keywords (or search terms) to use. Articles in scholarly encyclopedias often contain bibliographies that lead researchers to the most respected/useful secondary and primary works on a topic. In short, reference books are a great way to begin your research.

Many standard reference books are now available in digital form. Search the Diamond catalog for reference eBooks with these pre-formatted searches. Simply click in the desired text box (encyclopedias, dictionaries, or handbooks); add a relevant search term after AND; click "Search for Electronic..."

Online version of the largest reference work published in the social and behavioral sciences. The history subject classification contains articles about epochs and periods; groups and social formations; historical thought and historiography; problems in history; revolutions, movements, and protests; structures, processes, and institutions; subfields, areas, and specializations; and theory, methods, and approaches.

ABC-CLIO eBooks currently provides access to seven encyclopedias covering American and world history, including:

Credo Reference (formerly xreferplus) consists of a large collection of online reference eBooks, including 31 history titles.

A database of up-to-date encyclopedias and dictionaries, Gale Virtual Reference Library currently provides access to 20 history reference works, including:

netLibrary connects researchers with electronic versions of books from across all academic disciplines, including history. Approximately 3,400 public-domain titles constitute the core of the database. Recently published books still under copyright make up the majority of titles. From the latter category the Libraries have licensed approximately 12,800 eBooks for the Temple community, including dozens of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other American and world history reference books in the netLibrary Reference Center.

Click History link under Subject Reference in Oxford Reference Online for access to 50 history reference works, including:

Sage eReference currently provides access to 10 history encyclopedias, including:

Manage your citations with RefWorks, a tool that allows researchers to easily import, export, search, and create automatically formatted bibliographies online. Citations found via searches in library databases such as JSTOR and many other databases can be imported directly into RefWorks. No manual typing required. Bibliographies generated within RefWorks can then be exported into Word using any of dozens of citation formats (MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, etc.).

Britannica Online has carefully edited articles on all major topics. It fits the ideal purpose of a reference source as a place to get started -- or to refer back to as you read and write: articles written by easy-to-identify (or signed), credible authors that provide the academic community's most accepted facts and opinions about a topic. Most articles provide links or references to additional research.

You can generally cite these articles without your professor frowning on them as sources. Ask first: some faculty don't want you to cite from any encyclopedia. Why not? As a class or type of media encyclopedias are best suited to providing background information rather than in-depth or up-to-date scholarly analysis.

Wikipedia is "written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world" and relies on the collective wisdom of its volunteers to get the facts right and to balance the opinions expressed in the articles. It can be very useful as a starting point for many topics, especially obscure ones with special or passing popular interest.

Some Temple University faculty instruct their students not to use Wikipedia as a source because of the volunteer approach to editing, which can be unreliable at times. So, to be safe, think of Wikipedia more as a place to get started, but move on from Wikipedia to works with an identifiable author from a traditionally edited encyclopedia or other published reference work. An interesting compromise between traditional encyclopedias and Wikis is Citizendium.

Substantive Source: Rick Lezenby

Are you a reference junkie? Indulge your appetite for more facts and figures with our Online Reference Libguide!