This guide is intended as a starting point in your research; the databases and reference tools listed here are a  selective list. Always remember that you can ask for assistance at the Barnard Reference Desk at any point in your research, and you can always request a consultation.

SECONDARY SOURCES

REFERENCE BOOKS

Use for:

• an overview of a topic

• background information

• factual information

• bibliographies

• located on the 2nd floor of the Barnard Library

also:
America: History and Life
A major periodical index to scholarly journals containing articles on all aspects of American history. This index is useful for finding articles about topics and it can also lead to primary material. Check the Documentation Field (available by viewing the full citation) to see if the article has footnotes, is based on primary material, etc. Includes citations from 1954 to present.

PRIMARY SOURCES

CLIO

Columbia is a major research library and you can find primary sources in CLIO. For example if you do a keyword search: maine and travel, you will find some descriptive books about Maine written by  people who wrote about their experiences when traveling in Maine during the 19th Century. A list of titles can be sorted by "Date (oldest first)." This will display the items with the earliest publications listed first.

When doing a subject search in CLIO or the card catalog look for the subdivision "sources".
Examples:

subject: women--united states--social conditions--sources
subject: united states--history--1865 1921--sources
subject: american newspapers
subject: american periodicals
subject: twain mark correspondence

DATABASES for Finding journal and newspaper articles, essays, and other materials

19th Century Masterfile
Indexes and provides citations to articles from a number of pre-1925 publications including the New York Daily Tribune, 1825-1906.

19th century U.S. newspapers
Searchable data base containing digital facsimile images of 19th century U.S. newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.

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.

Accessible Archives
Searchable collection of U.S. journals and newspapers including Godey's Lady's Book 1830-1880, the Pennsylvania Gazette 1728-1800, Liberator 1861-1863, and selected African American newspapers.

American Civil War Letters and Diaries
Letters, diaries and memoirs from the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Although the years are out of the scope of this class, some may find this database useful.

American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I.
Materials are based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection. American Broadsides and Ephemera offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The remarkably diverse subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.

America's Historical Newspapers: Featuring Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922
Full-text access to Readex's three series of Early American Newspapers.

American Memory: Historical Collections from the National Digital Library
A rich collection, from over 80 collections, of images and full-text documents relation to U.S. history from the Library of Congress.

American Newspapers in the Columbia University Libraries
A checklist of U.S. newspapers owned by the Columbia University Libraries, dating from 1704 to the present, arranged by state and city of publication. Check list only.

American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900 plus
Over 1,000 full-text pages and images from several hundred American periodicals of the 18th and early 19th century. Includes special interest and general magazines, literature and professional journals, children and women's journals and more.

Archive of Americana, approximately 1600-1980's
Comprehensive historical collections, containing books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera.

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.

British Periodicals
Searchable Full-text of more than 160 British Periodicals from the late 17th century to the early 20th century.

Checklist of Women's Journals in the Columbia and Barnard Libraries
A checklist of women's magazines and journals held by the Columbia/Barnard Libraries. You can display the titles alphabetically by title, or by date.

CIS History Universe: Guide to Microforms: Primary Sources in U.S. History
African American Studies, American Civil War, FBI Documents, Political History, Southern and Western U.S. History and American Women. Includes some full-text documents

Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment, 1534-1860
Contains over 1,400 pages, letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early America.

Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945
Full-text searchable collection of books and periodicals, the bulk of the collection dates from 1880-1920.

HarpWeek, 1857-1912
Page images of Harper's Weekly, the popular illustrated American magazine, covering the years 1857 to
1912, a rich record of all aspects of life during those years. Contents may be accessed by any of  four
detailed indexes.

Historical Newspapers Online
This is an electronic form of the print index (not the full-text of the newspaper); some people may find the paper copy of the index easier to use. Includes the New York Times and the Times of London.

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.

Index to Nineteenth Century American Art Periodicals
Citations with some abstracts for articles, poems, and illustrations from over 40 19th century American art journals.

JSTOR The Scholarly Journal Archive
Full-text articles from more than scholarly journals in a variety of subject areas, some of which go back to the 1890s. Use the advanced search for more precise results.

Literature Online: The Home of English and American Literature on the World Wide Web (LION)
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose.

London Times Digital Archive
Searchable full-text database of articles from the London Times from 1785-1985.

Making of America
A digital library currently containing approximately 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

Nation Digital Archive
Searchable full-text page images of a major U.S. journal of  left/liberal opinion with coverage from 1865-1999.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
Provides a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories and interviews.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries
North American Women's Letters and Diaries (NAWLD) includes the immediate experiences of 107 women, as revealed in more than 9,000 pages of diaries and letters. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. When complete, the collection will include more than 150

Oral History Online
Index to oral history collections in English from around the world. Includes Ellis Island and history narratives.

PAIS: Public Affairs Information Online-Archive
Citations and abstracts for articles, books, conference proceedings, government documents, book chapters, and statistical directories about public affairs, 1915 to present.

Periodicals Archive Online (PAO)
Archives of hundreds of digitized journals published in the arts and humanities. More than 200 years of scholarship.

Periodicals Index Online (PCI)
A international, interdisciplinary full-text index especially useful for finding articles published in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Full-text and full image articles from the New York Times;1851-2001,Chicago Tribune; 1890-1958, Los Angeles Times;1881-1968,  Washington Post; 1877-1988,Atlanta Constitution;1868-1925,Boston Globe; 1872-1901, Chicago Defender;1901-1975, Chicago Tribune; 1890-1958, Harford Courant; 1764-1984. and the Wall Street Journal back to their first issue; 1889-1987. The New York Tribune;1900-1910 is also included.

Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing Archive
Spans a period of 120 years and contains both books and journal articles, including full text of eighteen English-language journals in psychoanalysis.

Readers' Guide Retrospective
Citations to articles in popular and general interest periodicals published between 1890-1982. E-Links are provided to link full-text articles when available online.

Sabin Americana
An online collection of 29,000 works about the Americas published from 1500 to the early 1900's.

Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900
Identifies the authors of articles within major Victorian Periodicals and provides a bibliography for each contributor. Primarily British, but Mark Twain and Henry James are included.

Women Writers Online
A full-text collection of writings by English and American women writing from the 16th through early 19th century.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
A collection of primary source documents and related scholarship.

PRINTED RESOURCES available in the Barnard Reference Area:
These indexes cite articles and essays written during the time period you are interested in.
If you do not find a title in CLIO, you can check the Union List of Serials BAR REF Z6945.U45 or WorldCat, a composite catalog of many libraries' catalogs. Interlibrary Loan and/or Borrow Direct can borrow or supply complimentary copies of articles from other institutions for library patrons.

American Diaries : an Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals (1983)
BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 A74 1983

The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women : an Annotated Bibliography (1987)
BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 G66 1987

Essay and General Literature Index
BARNARD REF. AI3 .E752 (Library has: 1900 - 1994)
Use to find essays published in anthologies (books). Remember that terminology has changed. For example, if you look under "African American" you won’t find anything, nor under "Afro-American" or "Blacks." You have to use "Negroes." Try CLIO first to find which library owns the book; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the card catalog at Butler Library.

International Index; a Guide to Periodical Literature in the Social Sciences and Humanities
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R49 (1907 - 1974)
Covers early 20^th Century scholarly journals that are not in the Readers Guide, which covers more popular magazines. When you find a citation for an article, the title of the journal is abbreviated. Look at the front to find out what the abbreviations stand for. Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical. If the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials to see whether Columbia used to subscribe to the journal. If Columbia stopped subscribing many years ago, it would not show up in CLIO.

The New York Times Index
BARNARD REF. (1933 - present) and BUTLER REF. R070 N481 (1851 - present).
The New York Times Index for 1851-1923 is also available online in ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R496  (1890 - 1899, 2 volumes)
Index to about 60 periodicals including Atlantic Monthly, Edinburgh Review, Political Science Quarterly, Popular Science Monthly, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Scientific American, etc. These are primarily magazines written for the general public, but some are more scholarly. Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials or WorldCat.

Poole's Index To Periodical Literature
BARNARD REF. AI3 .P7 1938g(1802 - 1881)
Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO  check the serials catalog in Butler Reference or the Union List of Serials.
Poole's is also available online in Nineteenth Century Masterfile.

Readers' Guide To Periodical Literature
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R48 (1900 - 1997)
Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO check the serials catalog in Butler Reference or the Union List of Serials.

Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada (ULS)
Printed guide.  BARNARD REF. Z6945 .U45 1965
This multi-volume set is arranged alphabetically by the title of the publication and indicates which periodicals major libraries subscribed to up until 1965. The code for Columbia is NNC; the code for the New York Public Research Libraries is NN.  If  ULS indicates that Columbia had a subscription to a title you must still check Butler Reference's Serials Catalog to find the call number and whether Columbia has the volume you need. Using ULS will give you a good idea of what's available at Columbia before trying to use the Serials Catalog.

United States Government Documents on Women, 1800-1990 : a Comprehensive Bibliography. (1993)
BARNARD REFERENCE HQ1410 H85 1993g

Women's Studies : Microform Collections
Guide to some of these microform sets available at Columbia University, for example: 
Americans for Democratic Action Papers, 1932-1965.
Black workers in the era of the great migration, 1916-1929.
Committee of Fifteen Records, 1900-1901.
Japanese Camp Papers, 1942-1945.

INTERLIBRARY LOAN & using other libraries

REFWORKS for managing citations and creating bibliographies

SUBJECT GUIDES & Electronic Resources

•Barnard Library Subject Guides: Complete List
•American Studies: Barnard Library Subject Guide
•History: Barnard Library Subject Guide
    Note: Barnard Library History Research Guide: U.S. History Documents and Primary Sources
        A list of Web sites with primary materials.
•Literature: Barnard Library Subject Guide
•Columbia Libraries Subject Guides: Complete List
•African American Studies: from CUL
•American History & American Studies: from CUL
•English and American Literature: from CUL
•Humanities and History: from CUL
•Women's Studies Subject Guide from Columbia University Libraries
•E-Images from Columbia University Libraries
•Oral History Research Office at Columbia
•American Studies Web: from Georgetown University
•Cambridge Collections Online