Researching Indians’ History Introduction to Library Resources

Three Types of Sources Primary: –sources written or created at the time of the event and by eyewitnesses Secondary Sources: –analysis or interpretation written later Tertiary: –reference-type works and finding guides to primary and secondary sources

Primary sources WrittenVisual Oral

Secondary sources BooksJournal Articles Dissertations

Tertiary sources Reference Works Databases Finding Guides

Search steps Topic and search terms  –Topical –Geographical People –Organization –Chronological Types of information  –Government reports –Newspaper accounts –First person accounts –Secondary sources –Images Encyclopedias can help you come up with a list of search terms The type of info needed determines which database to use

Database searching Boolean operators AND - narrows a search, links different concepts OR - broadens a search, links related concepts/synonyms ( ) – parentheses when combining ANDs and ORs Truncation/wildcard Many databases allow you to use a special symbol to search for variations of word endings. The asterisk * is used by many databases but some use ?, #, !