Sources for MA History research Presented by Richard Pears October 2009

2 Aims of this session Highlight importance of search strategies Increase awareness of the History resources at Durham and elsewhere Discuss your research

∂ What information do you need? Define research area: People, period, place Focus: i.e. politics, society, religion, economics, etc Information: facts, theories, historiography, data, images, artefacts, etc.

∂ Break down the subject into searchable areas Sample topic: War and national identity in medieval Scotland themestime periodplace

5 Combining search words AND war AND Scotland OR war OR conflict NOT war NOT religion

6 Other options with keyword searching Use phrases in “ ” – e.g. “William Wallace” use truncation to pick up plurals or other word endings –e.g. Scot* = Scottish, Scotland use wildcards to pick up spelling variants – e.g. behavio?r = behavior, behaviour use adjacency for words appearing in the same sentence –e.g. Bruce WITHIN 5 independence

∂ How will you search for your subject?

∂ Where will you find information?

9 Resources Books & e-books Directories Journals & e-journals E-prints Conference proceedings Theses Internet pages Statistics Official publications Specialist reports Primary material, including archives Discussion groups Academics & librarians

∂ Start here!

∂ How to find information: books Use the Library Catalogue: All material held in Durham University Libraries Author, title, keyword, subject searching Reserve, recall, renew items in Library Includes DVDs, theses, e-books Obtain items from store Export citations for your bibliography

12 E-books Early English Books Online (EEBO) Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) ACLS Humanities e-books Patrologia Latina Internet, e.g. Google Books -

∂ Locating other sources Use the references and bibliographies cited in other books Look for other works by cited authors Look for published collections, e.g. Surtees Society, Camden Miscellany, Calendar of State Papers Includes e-sources: State Papers Online, Medieval Sources Online, MEMSO, newspapers, images, parliamentary and political papers, and much moree-sources

∂ Using bibliographic databases Search engines indexing thousands of journals, theses, working papers Often include book reviews Sometimes link to full text Download references to relevant sources, then search for these in the Library catalogue See list at story story

∂ Using journal databases - JSTOR

∂ L Using Historical Abstracts

∂ Other sources: COPACCOPAC

∂ Other sources: Google BooksGoogle Books

∂ Other sources: Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

20 Primary sources Archives sessions at Palace Green Library Durham University Special Collections Access to Archives

21 New research Theses Conferences Alerting services E-prints Document delivery service

22 Practical Connect to the internet Open the page Identify resources for your research Ask for assistance if required

∂ Recap What sources will you need for your research? How will you find this information?

∂ Getting help Library web pages: Contact Speak to your tutors

Good luck!