American Studies : Race and Ethnicity

A UCSC Library Collection Resource Guide

This is a starting point in your search for information in the field of American Studies. Ask at the Reference Desk for help in locatinging or using any of the items listed below.

General Research and Style Guides
UCSC Library : Constructing Your Research Paper
Advice on Academic Writing (University of Toronto)
Academic Writing: Annotated Bibliographies (Univ. of Wisconsin)

Getting Started: Handbooks, Guides, Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Encyclopedias and handbooks are a good place to start when you know little about a topic, when you need an overview of a subject, or when you want a quick summary of basic ideas. They can also be used to gain awareness of academic methodology and theories or to familiarize yourself with the vocabulary of the field. Articles within these general works are often accompanied by carefully selected bibliographies or lists of key reference works. The following are located in the McHenry Library Reference Stacks:

Gale encyclopedia of multicultural America / edited by Jeffrey Lehman E184.A1 G14
Harvard encyclopedia of American ethnic groups / Stephan Thernstrom, editor E184.A1H35
Statistical handbook on racial groups in the United States E184.A1 H417
Encyclopedia of racism in the United States / edited by Pyong Gap Min E184.A1 E773
Africana : the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience / editors, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. DT14 .A37435
The Asian American encyclopedia / editor, Franklin Ng E184.O6 A827
The Oxford encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States / Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. González, editors in chief E184.S75 O97

Library Catalogs

CRUZCAT books, journals, newspapers, maps, films, sound recordings, computer files... owned by UCSC.
Melvyl® Catalog books, maps, films, sound recordings, dissertations... owned by all UC libraries.
RCAT/RLIN Bibliographic File Research Libraries Group (RLG) Union Catalog.
WorldCat shared cataloging database for academic, research, and public libraries.

To identify appropriate subject headings consult the Library of Congress List of Subject Headings or ask for help at the Reference Desk. See also: Library of Congress classification. E-F. History, America LC 26.9:E-F/2000

Journal Indexes and Abstracting Services

Cruzcat and Melvyl® index journals at the title-level but do not index the contents of individual issues. To locate journal articles use a periodical index and/or abstracting service. Most topics may be successfully researched in general indexes such as Expanded Academic ASAP/Infotrac or the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature . More specific topics may require the use of specialized subject indexes, most of which also contain abstracts and links to the full text.

America: History and Life (AHL) Available online to UC faculty, students, and staff.
Historical coverage of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Contains citations and abstracts for articles, book and media reviews, and dissertations. The database also includes CLIO Notes, which guides the user through chronologies and brief summaries of significant events and themes in American history. Publisher is ABC/CLIO

Sociological Abstracts Available online to UC students, faculty, and staff.
This searchable database citations for articles from journals, books, conference papers, and dissertations in sociology and other social and behavioral sciences. Citations after 1974 contain abstracts. Publisher is Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA).

PAIS International Database Available online to UC students, faculty, and staff.
The Public Affairs Information Service contains citations and short abstracts for journal articles, books, conference proceedings, government documents, and statistical directories. Subjects include US foreign relations. Publisher is Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA).

Chicano Database Available online to UC students, faculty, and staff.
Citations to articles in art, language, sociology, economics, history, literature, and politics of Mexican-American and Latino cultures. Abstracts are not available. Publisher is RLG's Eureka.

Left Index Available online to UC faculty, staff, and students.
Searchable database of citations to magazine and newspaper articles from the left, with a primary empahasis on scholarship inside and outside the academy and a secondary emphasis on sources of news and ideas. The database contains citations only.

Index to Black periodicals
Print index located at McH Ref Table 3 AI3.O4. Black studies on disc, the searchable CD_ROM cumulation is avalaible through 2002.

Index to Jewish periodicals
Print index located at McH Ref Table 3 AI3.I53.
Indexes and Abstracting services for related subject disciplines will also be relevent, e.g. MLA Bibliography for poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, Education Full Text for bilingual education, or EconLit for environmental racism. Consult the Library Research Page.

Digital Libraries

Ethnic NewsWatch news, culture and history from the ethnic, minority and native press.
NewsBank Full-Text Newspapers full text of newspapers from around the United States. Includes the Salinas Californian (2002-Current), Sacramento Bee (1984-Current), San Jose Mercury News (1985-Current), Washington Post (1977-Current), Miami Herald (1983-Current), and many more.
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the coll
Making of America a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
JSTOR searchable database containing the full-text of back issues of more than 160 academic journals.
Project MUSE searchable database contains online access to the full-text of over 100 scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.
LexisNexis Academic searchable full-text database is divided into five major content areas: News, Business, Legal Research, Medical Research, and Reference. The news section contains the text of many regional, national, and international newspapers and other news sources.

Gateways

American Studies Crossroads Project www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/
American Folklife Center lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/
INFOMINE: Scholary Internet ResourceCollections infomine.ucr.edu/
VoS: Voice of the Shuttle (UCSB) vos.ucsb.edu/

Last revised 18 January 2006

Comments to: Martha Ramírez /

University Library /

UC Santa Cruz