LibGuides: History: Getting Started

humanities librarian

Priscilla Finley, humanities librarian

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Contact:

Lied Library LLB1187

(702) 895-2132

Subjects: English, Film, History, Literature, Philosophy, Theatre, World Languages and Cultures

Special Collections

Su Kim Chung

Email Me

Contact:

702-895-2241

Subjects: Special Collections

History Day resources

History Day resources
Plan ahead to ensure your research visit to the UNLV Libraries is successful. This guide introduces how to use the UNLV Libraries and what resources are available to support historical research

Recommended Resources

America: History & Life with Full Text

Journal articles and books about the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

Historical Abstracts with Full Text

1954-
Journal articles and books about world history from 1450 forward (Does not include the United States and Canada).

History reviews - Oxford Handbooks Online

Scholarly research reviews and historiographical essays published in the Oxford Handbooks series. Use these to get an overview of how historians have approached a topic.

JSTOR

An archive of more than 700 important scholarly journals covering business, ecology, education, ethnic studies, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and sociology with content ending 3-5 years ago

Social Explorer

Social Explorer is an online research tool designed to provide quick and easy access to current and historical U.S. census data and demographic information.

Find a database or journal

All Library Databases
Select History from the subject drop-down menu to filter the list to just databases relevant to historians.
A-Z list of journals
Find out if UNLV subscribes to a specific journal or search within the contents of any single journal.

Getting Set Up

Get a RebelCard at the student union - on the back is your library barcode that will allow you to check out books and log into the interlibrary loan system.
To access library journal and database subscriptions from off campus, you will need your ACE account. Links from the library web site to subscription-only articles, journals and databases will prompt you to log in with your ACE.
Use your ACE account to log into the interlibrary loan (ILLiad) system so that you can receive articles not owned by the library in PDF form in 12-24 hours. Remember that ILL articles only remain in your account for 30 days, so archive anything you need to keep longer on your computer.
Set up your Google Scholar preferences to direct you to UNLV journal subscriptions so you can get full text access without paying if UNLV subscribes. Now you will see a UNLV Find Text link in your search results for citations that UNLV can provide online access to.
If you want to save your documents and citation info in one place, pick a system that works for you. UNLV Libraries pays for and supports RefWorks and Mendeley; a free, open source option, Zotero, is preferred by many historians because it can automatically format citations for a wide variety of source types and integrates well with Google Docs. Once you create a free account using any of these services, you can save citations, PDFs and links there and automatically generate bibliographies in Chicago, MLA or any style you choose.

Citation Manager Showdown: 2024 comparison of Mendeley, RefWorks and Zotero
Chart and videos from 2024 workshop comparing three major bibliography management software options.
Zotero
A free citation manager that allows you to collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources. Includes Zotero Standalone, a desktop application and the original Firefox (internet browser) extension.
Mendeley
This free citation manager tracks your resources, formats citations, and can even help you track and format your in-text citations as you draft your manuscript. Includes a social networking component and file sharing service for group projects. A premium version of Mendeley is provided to UNLV affiliates by the University Libraries.

Research Methods

Research Skills Primary Sources
Good for: Learning about working with primary sources in history.
Contains: Essays, videos, how-to guides, and case studies.
SAGE Research Methods
Good for: Designing research projects, planning studies, learning methodological approaches, gathering data, and understanding findings.
Contains: Tools and content for research methods.

A collection of real social research case studies is incorporated to help understand abstract methodological concepts in practice. Datasets from both international and national sources accompanied by how-to guides covering numerous quantitative and qualitative research methods are included. SRM contains more than 600 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, journal articles, videos, and handbooks as well as the entire Little Green Book (quantitative) and Little Blue Book (qualitative) series. A taxonomy of over 1400 methods terms is featured along with a Methods Map which visualizes relationships among methods terms, concepts, people, and literature. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.

History