West African Native Thumb Piano or Mbira c. 1750. University of Glasgow, RLG Cultural Materials

Barnard College Library Research Guide BC3998 Senior Research Seminar in Africana Studies Professor Kim Hall Fall 2006 Librarian: Karen Dobrusky

Contents
Reference Books | CLIO | Databases & Indexes
 Other Libraries Catalogs  & Interlibrary Loan| RefWorks & EndNote |  Consultation Request

REFERENCE BOOKS

Use for:

• an overview of a topic
• background information
• factual information
• bibliographies
• located on the 2nd floor of the Barnard Library

CLIO

CLIO (Columbia Libraries Information Online) is the on-line catalog for the Barnard & Columbia Libraries. CLIO can be searched by author, title, subject and keyword.  Help for searching CLIO is available on the Web CLIO opening screen. 

• You can enter CLIO from the Barnard Library Home Page or from the Columbia University Libraries Home Page
• Help with searching ("search tips") is available on the bottom of the opening search screen
• The holdings of the Health Sciences Library as well as the Union Theological Seminary are included in CLIO
• The Law Library's catalog is Pegasus, Teacher's College catalog is Educat and JTS' catalog is Aleph
• To search CLIO, Pegasus and Educat simultaneously click on the "Search all CU catalogs" tab on the opening CLIO screen
   

Sample Searches:
Title search: leave off the initial article (the, an, la, etc.)
encyclopedia of african american culture and history
journal of african american history

Author search: put last name, then first name
achebe chinua

Finding a book about a person or a subject: start with a Keyword search using the most distinctive words associated with the topic. Then look for useful subject headings and do a Subject search.

Keyword search: use: ("  ") for a phrase, and use ? for truncation (to find variant endings of a word)
tracey rose
race gender music
"ring shout"
"african american" chinua achebe
"african american" christian?

Subject search: use Library of Congress (LC) subject headings
rose tracey
south africa history
south africa social life and customs
art south african
women south africa
hip hop

Limiting to books in Barnard Library: use the Pre-set Limits or Post Limits option

Call numbers: Overview of the Library of Congress Classification Outline

Note that although the Barnard Library is in Lehman Hall, CLIO location Lehman means the Social Sciences library at Columbia; Barnard books have the location Barnard.

DATABASES & INDEXES: For Finding Periodical & Journal Articles

On the Databases list, which you can access from the Barnard Library Home Page or Columbia University Libraries Home Page, there are links to many indexes which give citations, abstracts and some full-text for articles in various disciplines. Many databases have e-Links which will search to see if the full-text of a particular item is available online through Columbia's resources. If you are unable to locate an item full-text search CLIO directly for the journal title. 

The following indexes and databases are probably the most helpful for researching Africana Studies & Gender Studies topics.

Africa-wide: NiPAD
Index to publications and unpublished manuscripts about and from Africa in history, literature, music ,arts, business and social sciences, 1981 to present.

America: History and Life
Major periodical index to scholarly journals containing articles on all aspects of American and Canadian history, 1954 to present.

Black Studies Center
This fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies includes scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspapers, articles and more. From Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals and the Chicago Defender.

Black Thought and Culture: African Americans to 1975
Contains full-text, 989 sources with 947 authors, covering the non-fiction works of leading African American authors.

Contemporary Women's Issues 
Full-text articles and reports about women from U.S. and international sources.

Gender Studies
Citations for articles on women's studies, gender studies, employment, family planning, feminism, feminist studies, feminist theory & history, gender, gender studies, international feminism, political/social activism, racial/ethnic studies, reproductive rights, sex discrimination, women’s studies, 1972 to the present.

GenderWatch
Feminist and gender studies, full text.

Humanities Full Text
Citations and abstracts for articles in the humanities, including history, literature and more, 1984-present.
Search Tips: Use " " for a phrase; * for truncation, Use keyword option

Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective, 1907-1984
Indexes major journals in both humanities and social sciences topics and includes some links to full- text articles.

JSTOR, the Scholarly Journal Archive
An archive of full text articles from more than 350 scholarly journals in anthropology, African studies, education, history, philosophy, political science, population studies, sociology and others from each journal's first issue but excluding the most current, usually 3-5 years. Includes World Politics, Political Science Quarterly and many more titles.

Project Muse
Full text articles from more than 170 scholarly journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press in the humanities and social sciences. Included are Africa Today, Human Rights Quarterly and man more titles. Includes most recent years only.

ADDITIONAL DATABASES & SPECIALIZED DATABASES

Alternative-Press Watch
Full-text articles from alternative press publications.

Ethnic NewsWatch
Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by the ethnic, minority and native press in the U.S. Coverage is from 1960 to date.

American Religion Database: ARDA
Provides data on churches and church membership, religious professionals, and religious groups (individuals, congregations, and denominations).

ATLA Religion Database
Major religious studies database providing citations to articles in religion and theology and including social science aspects of religious studies.

Art Full Text
Citations, abstracts and images for articles and book reviews in scholarly journals and museum bulletins, primarily in the US and Europe. Includes retrospective version, from 1929-present.
Use "" for a phrase; * for truncation.

MLA Bibliography
Major database for literature, language, linguistics and folklore. Citations for articles, dissertations, books, book chapters, etc. from 1963 to the present.  
Search Tips: Use " " for a phrase; * for truncation

LION: Literature Online
English and American poetry, drama, prose, biographies, and secondary sources, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 20th century.
Search Tips: To find critical articles click on "Search criticism and reference" 
Phrase is assumed - use "and" if not a phrase; * for truncation

Lexis-Nexis Academic
Contains domestic, e.g. New York Times, as well as many foreign newspapers/resources in full-text including the Times, London, BBC Monitoring Middle East, but they are not grouped by country. Hence it is necessary to know the name of a newspaper in order to search it. Also you may select the Guided News Search and the World News category, and then the appropriate region.  After that, it is possible to examine the Source List to see which newspapers are available, coverage generally begins in mid-1980s.

Access to African American Studies Primary Sources in African American History
Provides access to the full-text of selected primary sources (including autobiographies, speeches,
legislation, Supreme Court decisions) and secondary sources (articles from reference books and scholarly
journals). Includes prints and photographs. Contains material from colonial times up to the recent past.

ADDITIONAL AFRICANA DATABASES and RESOURCES

African American Biographical Database
African American Song
African American Women: A Biographical Dictionary
African Studies Companion Online
All Africa. Com
Black Drama: 1850 to present

SUBJECT GUIDES FROM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

African Studies Resources
African Studies guide. Also includes Guide to Internet Resource which provides access to online scholarly documents and electronic resources on Africa available on the Internet. Organized, in part, by region and country, organization, and topic. Part of the WWW Virtual Library. From Lehman Library.
African American Resources
Architecture and Fine Arts
Music
Women's Studies

OTHER LIBRARIES & INTERLIBRARY LOAN

CATNYP is the online catalog of the NYPL research library and LEO is the online catalog of the NYPL Branch Libraries.
The holdings of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as well as the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are included in the main catalog.

Eureka is the online collective catalog of many major research and academic libraries, archives, museums and more. Helpful for identifying and locating items not at CUL.

RefWorks & EndNote
Click here for information about using RefWorks and EndNote for information and instructions on using RefWorks & EndNote for managing your citations.
RefWorks and EndNote are bibliographic software packages that are available, free of charge, to all current Barnard and Columbia students, faculty and staff. 
RefWorks is available by signing up for an individual account on the RefWorks Website

CONSULTATIONS with a Reference Librarian
Click here to complete a form you can e-mail to the library requesting a consultation on your research, or come to the Reference Desk on the second floor.  To contact a reference librarian, e-mail refdesk@barnard.edu or call 212-854-3953.  We'll be happy to help you find additional information. You may contact Karen Dobrusky directly at kdobrusk@barnard.edu