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Guide to History Reference Books
This guide points highlights selected print and e-reference books for historical research.

Gale Virtual Reference Library
An e-reference collection of encyclopedias, almanacs and directories across a variety of topics and disciplines.
Credo Reference
An e-reference collection that covers a wide range of disciplines, topics, and publishers.
Oxford Reference Online Premium
An e-reference collection from Oxford University Press.
CQ Press Library
This collection of e-publications from CQ Press is helpful for research on legislative history or a national policy issue. See especially CQ Almanac.

Helmke Library Catalog
Find books, e-books and more available at Helmke Library.

Proquest Ebook Central
Search and view the full text of ebooks.
FirstSearch: WorldCat Advanced Search (See also WorldCat Advanced Search: FirstSearch)
Search for books in over 7,000 libraries. Use the FindIt button to request books from other libraries. This is the classic version of WorldCat, with additional search options. See also WorldCat.
WorldCat
Provides access to the OCLC database with more than 1 billion bibliographic records for materials in all formats held by libraries in the U.S. and around the world.

Google Books
Search the full text of books. Copyright (as applicable) will prevent you from reading the full text in Google. If you find a book of interest, search Helmke Library's Catalog or WorldCat to locate a print or digital copy.
Document Delivery (Interlibrary Loan)
Request items not owned by Helmke Library. This free service is an easy way to access almost any published book or article of interest. This will take approximately 1-2 days for digital items and 1-2 weeks for physical media.

You can experiment with and adapt these examples:

Basic Search: espionage france
Basic Search: heresy ("middle ages" OR medieval)
Basic Search: Explorations on Subjectivity, Borders, and <
Advanced Search Author: jefferson thomas
Advanced Search Title: holocaust memory
Subject: "vietnam war" "protest movements"
Subject: medicine history "20th century"

** Hint ** Try doing a ("search anything") basic search, then look for relevant Subjects (at left hand side of screen of within a book record).

Proquest Ebook Central
A contemporary collection of academic e-books, with some popular titles.
eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
A contemporary collection of academic e-books, with some popular titles.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Provides full-text searching of electronic facsimiles of over 180,000 titles published in Great Britain and North America in the eighteenth century.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Presents citations and images for over 125,000 works from such sources as Pollard & Redgrave's Short Title Catalog (1475-1640), Wing's short-title catalog (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).
Dissertations & Theses Global (See also ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global)
Dissertations, often book-length, are written as part of the process of received a doctoral degree. This archive includes the full-text of most recent dissertations and includes information back to 1861.

Project Gutenberg
One of the first collections of free e-books, with full text access to books in the public domain.

Google Books
Search the full text of books. Copyright (as applicable) will prevent you from reading the full text in Google. If you find a book of interest, search Helmke Library's Catalog or WorldCat to locate a print or digital copy.
HathiTrust
An extensive collection of digitized books, with both freely accessible and member-only titles. Sponsored by a consortia and a partnership of academic institutions.

Book Review Index Online
Contains the entire backfile of Book Review Index print content from 1965 to the present.
Choice Reviews Online
Online access to CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, with reviews of books and e-materials.
JSTOR
To find books reviews in JSTOR, narrow by "Reviews" before submitting your search.

JSTOR
Search the full text of journals in many disciplines, including over 450 journals in history. You can narrow by date range and can also scroll down to narrow by discipline. Book reviews are also included. See also a video created by JSTOR on primary and secondary sources.
America: History and Life
This database offers an extensive collection of scholarly articles in American history. You can also limit by historical period. Try the "PDF Full Text" link or the "Find-It" button to access the full text.
Historical Abstracts
This database offers an extensive collection of scholarly articles in world history. You can also limit by historical period. Try the "PDF Full Text" link or the "Find-It" button to access the full text.

Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life
Search across two important scholarly article databases in history. You can also search Historical Abstracts (world history) and America: History and Life (American history) separately.
E-Journal Finder
If you want to search a specific journal, such as American Historical Review, search for the journal title in Ejournal Finder to find the full text.

Project MUSE
Offers over 400 journal titles from 100 scholarly publishers covering the fields of literature and criticism, history, visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and others.

Academic Search Complete
Includes access to scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers across a wide range of topics and disciplines. You can limit your search to Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals.

Library "Everything" Search
Search across many library databases to find scholarly articles, magazines, books and more. After searching, try the limits at the left hand side. This is also a good place to look for items found in a bibliography.
Google Scholar
Full text searching of articles and books. If you find a journal article of interest, try the "cited by" link.

International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP Full Text)
Includes current and retrospective coverage of scholarly journals and newsletters from the United States, Africa and the Caribbean and full-text coverage of core Black Studies periodicals.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
Provides bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. Unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries.

Document Delivery (Interlibrary Loan)
Request items not owned by Helmke Library. This free service is an easy way to access almost any published book or article of interest. This will take approximately 1-2 days for digital items and 1-2 weeks for physical media.
Databases A-Z
You can search article databases in related fields, such as Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (political science), Sociological Abstracts (sociology) and MLA International Bibliography (literature).