Native American Studies A LIBRARY RESEARCH GUIDE

Introduction

This guide is designed to help you do research on social, cultural, political, economic, literary, and historical topics related to Native Americans, or American Indians. Primary focus of this guide is Indians of North America - the indigenous peoples of the contiguous United States, Canada and Alaska. Sources listed below represent a sampling of the library's collection. Note that the cross-disciplinary nature of Native American studies means that relevant titles are often dispersed throughout the collection.

Background Info

Taking a few minutes to read about your topic in a specialized encyclopedia, dictionary or handbook may be one of the most effective and time saving research tips in this guide. These can help you define unfamiliar terms, locate quick biographical information, verify dates and events. Encyclopedia articles are often followed by carefully selected bibliographies or lists of references to other works, useful items to have as you begin looking for additional information. The following are located on the Reference shelves behind the Reference Desk area.

If you'd like learn more about research and online resources stop by the Reference Desk, or take a class at the Library.

Indians Of North America : Methods And Sources For Library Research	Ref Z1209.H22 1983
Handbook of North American Indians 20 volumes are planned in this comprehensive study of the Indians of North America. Organized by region, they included bibliographies and indexes.	Ref E76.2H36
The Earth is our mother : a guide to the Indians of California, their locales and historic Sites	Ref E185.H64
Encyclopedia of North American Indians	Ref E76.2 .E53 1996
Native America in the twentieth century : an encyclopedia	Ref E76.2 .N36 1994
The Native North American almanac : a reference work on native North Americans in the United States and Canada	Ref E77.N37 1994
Native Americans : an encyclopedia of history, culture, and peoples	Ref E77 .P89 1998
The encyclopedia of Native American economic history	Ref E98.E2 E52 1999
The Gale encyclopedia of Native American tribes	Ref E77 .G15 1998

The Library also has Reference guides to more specialized Native American topics:

Finding articles

Try starting your search with a periodical index which arranges articles by subject. An often overlooked resource for journal articles are the bibliographies that can be found at the end of related journal articles or in books on your topic. There are even specialized indexes that allow you to search just for bibliographies! Stop by the Reference Desk for help.

Article Databases relevant to .......:

• Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) - A searchable database with citations and abstracts for journal articles covering all academic disciplines. Full text is available for more than 50% of the articles in this database. Subject areas: art and art history, general subjects, humanities, science and engineering, social sciences.
• LexisNexis - The news section contains the text of many regional, national, and international newspapers and other news sources.
• Ethnic Newswatch
• American History and Life
• Sociological Abstracts - Journal articles and documents in sociology and other social and behavioral sciences.
• MLA (literature)
• PSYC (psychology)
• CWI (Contemporary Women's Issues)
• Anthropology
• Congressional Universe
• PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service)
• ERIC (education)

	Click here for a web based CDL session

Sample Journals:

Finding books

Don't bother looking for the card catalog if you want to locate books at UCSC. The catalogs for finding materials in the library are computerized. These online catalogs are powerful search tools, but to take full advantage of them you may need some help getting started. Stop by the Reference Desk for one on one assistance in learning how to use these systems, or check out the workshops offered throughout the school year.

CRUZCAT is UCSC's local online library system. It includes materials at the McHenry and the Science Libraries and allows you to locate books, periodicals, government publications, maps, music scores, films and more. CRUZCAT also provides status information, e.g. if the material is checked out. It does not, however, index journal contents or include the full text of articles.

	Click here to go to a web-based cruzcat session

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Both the California Digital Library (CDL) Melvyl Catalog and CRUZCAT use "Library of Congress Subject Headings" (large red books at the Reference Desk) to catalog books. These subject headings are slow to change and sometimes removed from contemporary usage; they are, however, extremely useful in locating books and articles. Subject headings:

Ethnic groups or geographical locations can be substituted for other groups or locations. Some names and organizations can also be used in subject searches.
For help locating materials or instruction on using Melvyl or Cruzcat please ask at the Reference Desk.

Government Documents

Do you know which 1990 products contain data on the American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut population?	Gov Pubs US Docs C 3.2:IN 2/14
We the first Americans.	Gov Pubs US Docs C 3.2:AM 3/19 (http://www.census.gov/apsd/wepeople/we-5.pdf)
A guide to the microfilm edition of the FBI files on the American Indian Movement and Wounded Knee	Ref E93.S33 1986

Statistics and Atlases

Statistical record of Native North Americans	Ref E98.P76S73 1993
Nations within a nation : historical statistics of American Indians	Ref E77.S924 1987
Atlas of the North American Indian	Ref E77 .W195 2000

Biographies and Directories

Native America : portrait of the peoples	Ref E76.2 .N35 1994
Shapers of the great debate on Native Americans : land, spirit, and power : a biographical dictionary	Ref E98.L3 J65 2000
The encyclopedia of Native American biography : six hundred life stories of important people from Powhatan to Wilma Mankiller	Ref E89 .J69 1997
Native American women : a biographical dictionary	Ref E98.W8B38 1993
Native American writers of the United States	Ref PN141 .D5 v.175
Notable native Americans	Ref E89 .N67 1995
Who was who in Native American history : Indians and non- Indians from early contacts through 1900	Ref E89.W35 1990

Bibliographies

A bibliography is a list of books, articles and sometimes other materials such as films and recordings. They can be entire books, within books or at the end of journal articles. These are often overlooked resources that can be a treasure trove of related sources. Some are even annotated, with short descriptions of each entry. A well-organized, carefully selected and annotated bibliography can lead you to the best and most relevant sources on your topic.

Native Americans : social, economic and political aspects : a bibliography	Ref E77 .N6 1998
Indian slavery, labor, evangelization, and captivity in the Americas : an annotated Bibliography	Ref Z1209 .M25 1998
The Native American Sun Dance religion and ceremony : an annotated bibliography	Ref Z1209.83.G73 W45 1998
American Indian studies : a bibliographic guide	Ref Z1209 .W52 1995 E77
Get your words out of my mouth and your shadow off my back : an annotated bibliography of the image of the Indian in America	Ref Z1209.2.U5 G74 1995
North American Indian music : a guide to published sources and selected recordings	Ref ML128.F75 K44 1997
North American Indians and Alaska natives : abstracts of the psychological and behavioral literature, 1967-1994	Ref E59.P87 N67 1995

When you write a research paper, it's important that you credit the scholars and critics who have contributed to your ideas, whatever the format their publications may take (print, sound, film, WWW). There are guides specific to certain fields of study, or your professor or instructor may request a specific bibliographic and citation style. Some Reference Guides that provide more detail on bibliographies and specific style guides are:
Citations and References
MLA Style Guide

Where is it in the library?

Where are the books shelved in McHenry Library? See our guide to using Call Numbers (library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/call_numbers.html) that includes tips on locating where our books and journals are shelved in the Library.

WWW

The World Wide Web (WWW) provides a means of connecting to a vast amount of information via the Internet. The range of information is enormous, ever-changing and astonishingly varied. However, just because something comes packaged in a high tech format, doesn't mean it's well researched or accurate. One approach to researching the Web is to start your search using a site that is more likely to focus on scholarly resources and critically evaluate your WWW search results.

National Museum of the American Indian Web resources	http://www.si.edu/nmai/links/content.html
Native American Documents Project	http://www.csusm.edu/nadp/nadp.htm
Native American Treaties and Agreements	http://envirotext.eh.doe.gov/treaties.htm
Native American Tribal Law Codes	http://envirotext.eh.doe.gov/triblaw.htm
Index of Native American Resources on the Internet	http://hanksville.phast.umass.edu:80/misc/NAresources.html
NativeWeb	http://www.nativeweb.org/
California Indian Library Collections	http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/cilc/brochure/brochure.html
Native American Studies [Stanford U.]	http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/native/indian.html