Background Information
Black Firsts
"4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events." Organized by broad subject area (education, government, sports...).
Ref. E 185 .B574 2003
Black Women in America. 2 vols.
Extensive biographical essays on current and historical black women.
Ref. E 185.86 q.B542 1993
Blacks in America, 1492-1977: a chronology & fact book
Quick facts and almanac-type information.
Ref. E 185 .S57 1977
Chronology of African American History
Year by year from 1492 through 1996. Documents section contains excerpts from important historical documents.
Ref. E 185 .H64 1997
Encyclopaedia Britannica Guide to Black History
Very extensive online guide with articles, audio, video, timeline, and bibliography.
http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. 5 vols.
This encyclopedia's 2,300 articles and 1,100 illustrations cover topics such as abolition, Afrocentricity, ice hockey, medical associations, the New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741, the Voter Education Project, various cities and states, and numerous individuals. Most essays contain bibliographies for additional sources.
Ref. E 185 q.E54 1996
Negro Almanac: A reference work on the African American
A core source for information on history, biography, arts, achievements, and issues related to black Americans. The chronology and the text of "significant documents" will especially be of use to history students.
Ref. E 185 q.N385 1989
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Finding Books
To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. Try a Subject begins with search, for example, afro americans history. LUCIA will list other subject headings (and subheadings) which may be of interest.
To combine terms for a different kind of search, try Keyword Anywhere. LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. Try a search like black and history or women and history and africa?. The question mark acts as a truncation symbol and tells LUCIA to search for all words starting with africa: africa, african, african-american, etc.
Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.
Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.
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Finding Articles
The best index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options. Two of our resources, JSTOR and Project MUSE provide complete full text. Some of our indexes include:
Academic OneFile
A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Includes full-text articles, many with images. 1980 - present; updated daily.
EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals.
Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.
The essential indexes to the scholarly literature of history, in books and
proceedings as well as journals. Includes short summaries of the works indexed.
Historical Abstracts includes citations of articles on African, Asian,
Latin American and European history. Beginning in 1971 the paper version was
divided into Modern History Abstracts and Twentieth Century Abstracts. Since
1964 America: History and Life provides corresponding access to
literature on the United States and Canada.
Index to Black Periodicals
Under various titles, this has been a standard index to periodicals for more than 50 years.
Reference Indexes 1950-
Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try the 
button to see if that particular article is available. If you don't find it, look in LUCIA for the title of the journal or newspaper to see if the library owns it. You should also search
BESS, an
automated search of the library's full text databases, for electronic copies of articles.
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Finding Newspaper Articles
Finding News Information
From the librarians here at Lawrence. Includes links to many newspapers on the Web, and to electronic news source subscriptions.
New York Times. 1851-current.
Considered to be the American paper of record. The New York Times
is on microfilm and on the web.
New York Times Index--Reference Indexes/Microform Area
New York Times (1851-2004)
Current issues available from many sources: see BESS
ProQuest Newspapers
Provides access to over 300 local, national, and international newspapers, most in full-text. Dates for backfiles vary by title.
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Finding Biographical Information
African American Biographical Database
"The Largest Electronic Collection of Biographical Information on African Americans, 1790-1950." Allows searching by name, location, occupation, religion, dates, and gender. Resulting entries lead to PDF versions of pages from reference sources. An amazing resource, provided by Badgerlink.
http://aabd.chadwyck.com/
Dictionary of American Negro Biography
Lengthy scholarly essays on American blacks who died before 1970.
Ref. E 185.96 D53 1982
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Finding Web Resources
An African- American Bibliography: History
Published in 1992 by the New York State Library (now hosted by Penn), this bibliography contains an extensive list of primary and secondary sources.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Bibliography/AFAM_History.html
The African-American Mosaic
A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture. This is a nice example of an online exhibit that's also a useful publication.
African American World
From PBS, "your guide to African American History and Culture."
Black History in Wisconsin
From the Wisconsin Historical Society, "original documents, pictures, eyewitness accounts, and other primary sources you can examine online that reveal Wisconsin’s black heritage"
Gateway to African American History
From the U.S. State Department, a very interesting collection of resources, from Presidential Proclamations to links to bibliographies and other web resources.
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an extensive multimedia collection of images, maps, and texts.
http://www.inmotionaame.org/
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:
It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources. The library's Web Wise Guide to Searching give some helpful inside tips. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.
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