History

Use the library's catalog to locate print sources such as published letters or diaries. These sources will often be shelved along with secondary sources in the main part of the library. Key terms to use in searching to limit the search to primary documents include "correspondence" and "diaries." 

Selected Examples:

• Title: Kamikaze diaries : reflections of Japanese student soldiers / Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney.
  Call Number: D792.J3 O265 2006
• Title: African-American exploration in West Africa : four nineteenth-century diaries
  Call Number: DT634 .A37 200
• Title: The selected papers of Margaret Sanger / edited by Esther Katz ; assistant editors, Cathy Moran Hajo and Peter C. Engelman.
  Call Number: HQ764.S3 A25 2003

These same search methods can also be used through Guilford library's catalog to expand your search to additional publications which may be available to you through Interlibrary Loan. Limit to the book format to locate items more likely to be available to you or leave the format open to also include listings for manuscript collections with more restricted use.

Large searchable sites including freely available online resources from a variety of collections.

Example Full-Text Subscription Databases with Primary Sources Available to Guilford students:

	African-American Newspapers : the 19th Century  Provides full text of the entire collection of five African-American newspapers published in the 19th century.
	America's Historical Newspapers via NewsBank Early American Newspapers features cover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of historic newspapers, providing more than one million pages as fully text-searchable facsimile images. For students and scholars of early America, this unique collection -- based largely on Clarence Brigham's "History and Bibliography of American Newspapers,1690-1820" -- offers an unprecedented look back into the extraordinary history of the United States -- the story of its people, ideals, commerce and everyday life.
	European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 via Ebscohost The database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. A wide range of subject areas are covered; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery. The original bibliography was co-developed by John Alden and Dennis Landis, Curator of European Books at The John Carter Brown Library. The John Carter Brown Library, founded in 1846, is a foremost repository of rare books and materials and is a center for advanced research in history and the humanities.
	Historical Statistics of the United States  The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history. Downloadable and customizable to suit individual areas of interest. Includes statistics from over 1000 sources last updated in the distant 1975.
	New York Times Historical Newspaper via ProQuest Company This database offers nearly three million pages of digitized full-text and full-image newspaper articles covering the entire publishing history of the newspaper, from 1851 to 2007. The full-text articles can be viewed in its original context. Researchers can locate news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements. Also, researchers can use basic keyword, advanced, guided, and relevancy search techniques to pinpoint the information they are seeking. They can browse through issues page by page, as one would browse a printed edition. Search results lists provide bibliographic information, including date, issue, article headline, page number, and byline (where given).
	Sanborn Maps North Carolina via NCLive Sanborn Maps for the state of North Carolina provides digital access to 11,173 large-scale maps of 158 North Carolina towns and cities. Users have the ability to easily manipulate the maps, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and compare maps from different years.
	Wall Street Journal Historical Newspaper via ProQuest Company This database provides full-text articles from the world's leading financial newspaper dating back to 1889 to1993. The database contains more than half a million pages and more than five million articles that can be viewed in its original context. Researchers can locate news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements. Also, researchers can use basic keyword, advanced, guided, and relevancy search techniques to pinpoint the information they are seeking. They can browse through issues page by page, as one would browse a printed edition. Search results lists provide bibliographic information, including date, issue, article headline, page number, and author name (where given).

[Go to Databases (Alphabetical) for direct links and a full list of online databases at Guilford]

Subject Based Open Access Sites: