HIS 102 - Western Civilization 1650 - Present - Steamboat Campus Library - CMC Libraries at Colorado Mountain College

Research Tips for History

Your course will require you to write a paper on a historical event - and you will need to do research on your particular topic!

The CMC Libraries have many resources - both books and electronic resources - that will help you greatly reduce the amount of time and effort required to learn a great deal about your topic.

Here are a few tips for you:

- Use the Library catalog to find books by starting with a keyword search - all you need to do is type your topic into the search box and then go from there. But...if you don't find your book right away, here are a few more things you can do:

Change your search to look at the books that are available in our library partner networks of Marmot and/or Prospector. This service is called interlibrary loan and it is free. The book is almost always here within 3-5 days.
Ask us! We can probably help find something that can work for you.
Your library staff orders in extra books on the topics you are writing about from other libraries to help you out. We just might have the book you want on a cart behind the Library front desk.

- Use a database, NOT Google!

A database - a collection of vetted and organized resources - will get you high-quality, peer-reviewed information and you will NOT have to sift through thousands of results to get to it.
Top databases to use for history can be found in the boxes on this page. EBSCO Discovery will search a variety of databases at one time, and the Gale databases have great tools you can use to identify primary sources related to your topic. Do this by either doing a keyword search for your topic, or by choosing "Browse Topics", selecting your topic and then seeing all the resources right there on one page!

- Start a little early on your research if at all possible, so you can refine and modify if necessary.

Research is not a one-step process - it is an evolution of thought and inquiry. This process goes a lot more smoothly and with more enjoyment if you can select a topic that is of interest to you.

Individual Databases with Specialized Search Interfaces

Biographies

Biography In Context This link opens in a new window Includes more than 600,000 biographies on more than 500,000 people and integrates video, audio, podcasts, primary sources, and images.
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Articles, Primary Sources, Biographies, Videos, & More

U.S. History in Context This link opens in a new window Find comprehensive coverage of the most-studied topics, from the arrival of Vikings in North America 1,000 years ago to Vietnam, Watergate and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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World History in Context This link opens in a new window Reaches back to the ancient world and forward to today’s headlines. Provides an overview of world history that covers the most-studied events, periods, cultures, civilizations, religions, conflicts, wars, ideologies, cultural movements, and people.
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History Reference Center This link opens in a new window Includes full text for 150 leading history periodicals and features more than 1,990 reference books, encyclopedias, and non-fiction books.
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American Indian Experience This link opens in a new window Illuminates the histories and contemporary cultures of the Native peoples of North America.

Primary Sources

Black Life in America This link opens in a new window It highlights the experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media, 1704 to today. Black Life in America offers coverage of the African American experience from the early 18th century to the present day, sourced from more than 19,000 American and global news sources, including over 400 current and historical Black publications.
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Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection This link opens in a new window Includes more than 600,000 digitized pages, representing 160+ individual newspaper titles published in Colorado from 1859 to 1923. Due to copyright restrictions, CHNC does not generally include newspapers published after 1923.
Denver Public Library Digital Collections This link opens in a new window Contains a selection of photographs, maps, broadsides, architectural drawings and other documents from the collections of the Western History/Genealogy Department chronicling the people, places, and events that shaped the settlement and growth of the Western United States. The work of many outstanding photographers is represented and the collection includes images of Native Americans, pioneers, railroads, mining, Denver and Colorado towns, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, the 10th Mountain Division ski troops and many more.
Digital Public Library of America This link opens in a new window DPLA provides open access to photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more. The cultural institutions participating in DPLA represent the richness and diversity of America itself, from the smallest local history museum to our nation’s largest cultural institutions.
Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window Provides open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.

Images for Presentations

Britannica ImageQuest This link opens in a new window Offers nearly 3 million images rights-cleared for non-commercial, educational use and are perfect for creating exciting and visually engaging projects and presentations.

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Primary Source Info

For your assignment, you will need to use at least some primary source material. The Ithaca College Libraries have a great resource that outlines what are primary sources versus secondary sources. We highly recommend you refer back to their page as you are conducting your research so you can easily determine if you have found a good primary source!

Ithaca College Library Primary Source Research Guide