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History

Locate core research resources in history

HIST 389: The Sixties

This course focuses on primary and secondary source-based research.

Getting Started: Searching the Library Catalog

The library catalog is a great place to start your research. Here are some tips to make searching more effective:

  1. Make sure that you sign in. This allows you to see your access options for library materials, save searches, set notifications on saved searches, and save items to your favorites.
  2. Use Boolean operators if you're doing a keyword search. For example:
    • Civil Rights Movement AND Martin Luther King Jr. AND speeches - the catalog will return only materials that mention all three search terms.
    • Vietnam War AND (protest OR draft) - the catalog will broaden your search to include materials that discuss either protest or the draft in connection with the Vietnam War.
    • Counterculture AND music NOT Beatles→ the catalog will reduce your search results by returning materials that mention counterculture and music but do not mention the Beatles.
    • Make sure that you enter Boolean operators in all caps: AND, OR, NOT
  3. Use truncation and/or wildcards. For example:
    • Entering the search term femin will return results for feminist, feminism, feminine, etc.
    • Entering the search term wom?n will return results for woman, women
  4. Group your terms using parenthesis to do multiple searches at once. For example:

    • ("student movement" OR "New Left") AND university

    • (hippie OR counterculture) AND fashion

  5. Narrow your results to a specific genre, place, or time. For example:

    • "Black Panthers" AND Chicago

    • "sexual revolution" AND United States

    • "feminism" AND magazines AND 1960s

How To Read Call Numbers

This is an explanation of how books with Library of Congress call numbers are sorted.  This gives a better understanding of Library of Congress shelving.

  1. The first line is always a letter line and is filed alphabetically.
  2. The second line is a whole number line and is filed numerically.
  3. Sometimes the second line has a decimal and continued on the same line or the third line.  Anytime you see a decimal point, always take each space separately.
  4. Other lines may include volume numbers, copy numbers, dates, or a combination.
  5. No dates come before a date.

Ten Library of Congress call numbers in order on a shelf. On the first line, 'LA' before 'LB'. On the second line, '2327' before '2328'. On the combination letter number line 'B' before 'C'. For the numbers after the letter on the combination line, '.55' before '.554' and '.554' before '.63'. For the last line, '1987' before '1991'.

Call Numbers related to this course:

  • E and F (History of the Americas): For books on U.S. history and specific movements of the 1960s, such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War.
  • H (Social Sciences): For social, political, or economic aspects of the decade.
  • P (Language and Literature): For literature, poetry, and other writings from the period.
  • M (Music): For music of the 1960s, including folk, rock, and other genres.
  • N (Fine Arts): For art, design, and fashion. 

Guide from the Library of Congress

Helpful guide to citing various textual and visual materials with examples of maps, photographs, entire websites, etc.

Chicago Style

Choosing a History Database

Select a history-focused research database using the lists linked below:

Databases by Region

Databases by Period

General Databases

Newspapers, Databases, and other Collections

Images printed in Newspapers and Periodicals, as well as other audio and video recordings.