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African American Studies

This guide provides research help for social, cultural, political, economic, literary, and historical topics related to African American Studies. It is divided into the following categories:

Background Information | Journal Articles | Core Journals | Books | Web Sites | Citation Guides

FIND BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The following reference books provide definitions, topical overviews, and bibliographies on a variety of subjects. (Note: Books in the McHenry Reference Collection are shelved in the 2nd-floor Reference Stacks.)

FIND JOURNAL ARTICLES

The following article databases allow you to search for articles by topic. The UC-eLinks icon in most online databases will lead you to the text of journal articles when available, the call numbers for print copies of journals, and forms for requesting items through interlibrary loan if UCSC doesn't own the journal. See the UC-eLinks Guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/elinks.html) for more information. Note: All databases and online resources are available by connecting to the Library Research Web page (http://library.ucsc.edu/research.html) and searching for the resource by title.

Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP — Articles in popular magazines and scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and general sciences. Legal, business, and health journals are also included. Many records have abstracts and full text.

LexisNexis — The news section contains the text of many regional, national, and international newspapers and other news sources.

Black Studies OnDisc — CD-ROM database located in McHenry Library Reference.

Ethnic Newswatch — Full-text newspaper and journal articles. Available in English or Spanish. News, culture and history from the ethnic, minority and native press.

American History and Life — Articles and books on American history

African American Newspapers: The 19th Century — Full-text of newspapers published by African Americans during the 1800's. Great tool for primary source material.

Special Topic Databases

20th Century African American Poetry and African American Poetry 1750-1900 are searchable and browsable databases of nearly 3,000 poems. Black Drama is a full-text searchable and browsable database of plays written by African, Caribbean, and African American authors. It contains character and bibliographic information for each play, plus production details and images for selected plays. MLA Bibliography and Literature Resource Center also provide links to articles and texts on literature and literary criticism.

Sociological Abstracts contains articles on sociology and African Americans. Note the Soc Abs thesaurus uses the descriptor "Black Americans" instead of African Americans.

PsycInfo contains articles on psychology and the African American experience. Note the PsycInfo thesaurus uses the descriptor "Blacks" instead of African Americans.

Many other databases from specific academic disciplines such as education, sociology, and American history contain citations to research on African Americans. See the list of subject guides for database suggestions.

CORE JOURNALS

The list below includes just a few of the many journals in the library on African American Studies. For a more complete list, search CRUZCAT under the subject African Americans -- periodicals.

FIND BOOKS

CRUZCAT (http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu) is UCSC's online library catalog. It includes books, periodicals, maps, videos, government publications, CDs, music scores, and more materials located in both McHenry and the Science & Engineering Library. CRUZCAT does not include the text of journal articles.

The MELVYL Union Catalog (http://melvyl.cdlib.org/) contains the holdings all nine UC Libraries. It also has links to request items UCSC does not own through interlibrary loan.

Try the following Library of Congress subject headings to find books in African American Studies:

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES

African American Studies Programs in the United States (http://www.princeton.edu/~aasprog/aasps.htm). Compiled by Princeton University AAS program.
A list of universities with undergraduate- and graduate-degree programs in African American Studies.

African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html) from the Library of Congress American Memory site.
Primary documents in African American history and culture. Includes pamphlets from authors such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Ida B. Wells.

Women of Color Web (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/grhf/WoC/) from the Global Reproductive Health Forum at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Writings by and about women of color in the U.S., focusing specifically on issues related to feminisms, sexualities, and reproductive health and rights.

African American Odyssey (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aohome.html) from the Library of Congress American Memory site.
Large collection of rare books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, photos, films, and recordings documenting the African American experience.

Not all information on the Web has not been evaluated by librarians or scholars. If you are using a Web page as a possible research citation, apply the criteria in the Web Evaluation Guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/evaluate.html) to determine the quality of your source.

STYLE GUIDES: Organizing Your References

How to ... Use MLA Bibliographic Style (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/mla_citations.html)
UCSC's guide to citing in the MLA (Modern Language Association) style

How to ... Use APA Bibliographic Style (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/apa_citations.html)
UCSC's guide to citing in the APA (American Psychological Association) style