Library Research Guide

for

Humanities 119: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Prof. Denise Despres

 

Students with questions about identifying and locating research materials for their projects should feel free to contact the Humanities Liaison Librarian to schedule an appointment or to ask a question via e-mail:

Peggy Burge (pburge@ups.edu)

Collins Library, Room 131

Tel: (253) 879-3512

Note: Between October 23, 2009 and November 9, 2009, please e-mail questions to this address: libref@pugetsound.edu.
Research Basics
Reference
Books
Primary Sources
Journal Articles

 

 

Research Basics

    Choose a topic (with your professor's guidance and approval) that genuinely interests and excites you!

    Research is a process and takes time. You need time for reading, analyzing, and interpreting your materials, and then writing and revising your work. You often may need to request materials from other libraries and these materials may take anywhere from a day to a week or more to arrive. Here is some basic information about wait times:

        • Books requested through SUMMIT: two to four business days (Monday-Friday)
        • Journal articles requested through ILLiad: usually a few days; sometimes a week or more

    Keep careful records of your research journey. Make note of the databases you use and the keywords or subject headings you find most useful. Write down all bibliographic information for the books, book chapters, and journal articles you use. If you prefer to work in an electronic environment, you may wish to consider registering for RefWorks, an online bibliographic management tool.

    Real research requires real effort. Do not limit yourself to only those resources that are most convenient to access, such as full-text articles.

 

Reference Resources

Encyclopedias and other reference resources are excellent places to start your research. You usually can expect to find the following important information in articles in subject encyclopedias:

      • An overview of the topic, with key individuals and events identified, and often some mention of how the topic has been studied (historiography)
      • Cross references to give you a sense of the boundaries of the topic and its relationship to other topics
        • Look for "see also" at the beginning or end of the article
        • Some encyclopedias highlight words in the text of the article to indicate that there is a separate entry on that topic
      • Identification of primary source materials
        • Scholarly editions of primary sources may be listed in the bibliography
        • The main body of the article may mention key primary source writings and their author(s)
        • Some encyclopedias include excerpts of primary source materials)
      • Bibliographies of key secondary literature (books and articles) on the topic

      Print reference resources are located on the first floor of the library, just off of the Learning Commons. Reference Atlases, unless otherwise indicated, are located on the shelves near the double doors of Technical Services. Reference books may not be checked out. When you are finished with a reference book, please place it on the book cart next to the Learning Commons information desk.

I. Atlases

Atlas of the Medieval World. By Rosamund McKitterick. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Call # D 117 M35 2004 Reference

Complete Atlas of World History, vol. 2: The Medieval and Early Modern World, AD 600-1783. By John Haywood. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 1997. Call # G 1030 .C66 1997 Reference Atlas

II. Encyclopedias

Dictionary of the Middle Ages. 10 vols. Ed. Joseph R. Strayer. New York: Scribner's, 1982-89. Call # D114.D5
Note: For updated references, consult the Supplement edited by William C. Jordan
(Call# D114.D5 Suppl. 1)

World Eras. Vol. 4: Medieval Europe, 814-1350. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Call #D20 W67 2001. (call # date doesn't match actual year of publication). [Each volume in this series has chapters on geography; the arts; communication, transportation and exploration; social class system and the economy; politics, law, and the military; leisure, recreation and daily life; family and social trends; religion and philosophy; and science, technology and health. Each chapter includes listings of primary sources (some are excerpted within the chapter) and secondary sources.]

Arts & Humanities Through the Eras. Vol. 3: Medieval Europe, 814-1450. Ed. Kristen Mossler Figg and John Block Friedman. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Call #NX 440 A787 2004. [Each volume in this series explores a specific era through in-depth articles on nine broad themes: architecture and design; dance; fashion; literature; music; philosophy; religion; theater; and visual arts. Each chapter also includes excerpts from primary source documents, glossaries of specialized terms, and bibliographies.]

Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life, Vol. 2: The Medieval World. Ed. Joyce E. Salisbury. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Call #GT 31 G74 2004 [Contains a historical overview, and chapters devoted to specific themes: domestic life, economic life, intellectual life, material life, political life, recreational life, and religious life. At the end of each volume is a selection of primary sources.]

Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Ed. Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Call #HQ1143 W643 2004 [Most entries are several pages long and are accompanied by extensive bibliographies of both primary and secondary sources.]

Encyclopedia of Medieval Church Art. Ed. Edward G. Tasker. London: B.T. Batsford, 1993. Call #N 7943 A1 T37 1993

Virtue and Vice: The Personifications in the Index of Christian Art. Ed. Colum Hourihane. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Call # N8012 V57 V57 2000

Routledge / Garland Medieval Encyclopedias:

Medieval England. Ed. Paul Szarmach. New York: Garland, 1998. Call# D129.M43

Medieval France. Ed. William W. Kibbler. New York: Garland, 1995. Call # DC33.2 M44

Medieval Germany. Ed. John M. Jeep. New York: Garland, 2001. Call # DD157.M43

Medieval Iberia. Ed. E. Michael Gerli. New York: Routledge, 2003. Call # DP99.M33

Medieval Ireland. Ed. Seán Duffy. New York: Routledge, 2005. Call # DA933. M43

Medieval Italy. 2 vols. Ed. Christopher Kleinhenz. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Call # DG443.M43

Medieval Jewish Civilization. Ed. Norman Roth. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Call # DS124.M386

Medieval Scandinavia. Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al. New York: Garland, 1993. Call # DL30.M43

Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Margaret Schaus. New York: Routledge, 2006. Call # HQ 1147 E85 W66 2006.

 

 

BOOKS

Online Library Catalogs

SIMON is the online catalog for the materials (books, DVDs, CDs, music scores, government documents, maps) housed in Collins Library. When you find a title you are interested in, take note of its location, call number, and availability. Library floor maps tell you the call number ranges for books on each floor.

SUMMIT is the combined online catalog for over 30 academic libraries in Oregon and Washington. If the books you need are not available in Collins Library or already have been checked out by someone else, you may request them via SUMMIT. When you request a book from SUMMIT, you will be prompted to identify your university affiliation and then sign in with your name and university ID number (including the zeroes at the start of the number). Your university ID number can be found on your ID card. Books requested from another SUMMIT library usually will arrive in a week or less. You will receive an e-mail message letting you know when the requested items have arrived and are available to be checked out.

Using SIMON & SUMMIT

Books in most academic libraries in the United States are cataloged and organized by their Library of Congress subject headings. Subject headings are a form of controlled vocabulary designed to make possible the retrieval of all information on a defined topic, regardless of the specific descriptive words used by the author. (Keyword searches, by contrast, are based on natural language, with the result that only part of the information on a topic is retrieved.) Identifying Library of Congress subject headings for your topic is the most efficient way to locate the books that you need. Here are some examples of Library of Congress subject headings:

Identifying Library of Congress subject headings:

Method #1: Keyword Searches

Enter a variety of terms in SIMON that you think describe your topic. When you call up a record that seems promising, mine its subject terms to find similar items. To do this, simply click on one of the subject headings listed in the record for the book; the next screen will list all the books in Collins Library that share this subject term. You should also mine subject headings in SUMMIT.

Method #2: Known Item Searching

Run a title search for a known item. It might be a book that your professor has recommended, or a title that you have gleaned from the bibliography of an encyclopedia entry. Once you bring up the full record for that book, take a look at the subject headings. You can click on them to find other books that share this subject term.

 

TIP!

As you read through books and articles, make note of promising articles and books that the author cites in footnotes or in the bibliography, and then take a look at these as well. This is called citation mining.

 

Primary Sources

Tips for locating primary sources:

  • Mine the bibliographies of encyclopedia articles, books and journal articles
  • If you know the author of a primary source, you can do an author search in SIMON and SUMMIT, then limit the results to "English" to bring up only the translations.
  • Browse through the following online compilations of primary sources:

Internet Medieval Sourcebook. A large collection of primary sources (excerpts and full texts) collected by medievalist Paul Halsall and hosted by Fordham University. A bar on the left lists the main subject headings of the sourcebook.

The ORB: Online Reference Work for Medieval Studies. A very useful compilation of essays and bibliographies, including identification of primary sources.

ARTstor. ARTstor is a digital library of art images, associated information, and software tools designed to enhance teaching, learning and scholarship. ARTstor contains approximately 300,000 images of art, architecture and archeology from a wide range of cultures and time periods, with initial strengths in European, American and Asian cultures.

 

Databases

Online databases are the tools we use to identify journal articles (and sometimes books and chapters in books, too) on a given topic. Subscription databases are focused on a specific subject area (i.e., medieval studies) or type of source (i.e., newspapers). Some databases offer full-text articles; others provide just citations to sources and then you must use other tools to actually locate copies of that resource.

ITER: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (subscription database; excellent starting point!)

      • Interdisciplinary (covers all aspects of European medieval and Renaissance civilization from 400 to 1700)
      • Indexes articles in over 1,300 journals
      • Also indexes books and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, festschriften, encyclopedias and exhibition catalogues).
      • Provides citations only.

MLA International Bibliography -- This is the preeminent database for literary studies. If you are researching a literary text, MLA should be one of the databases you consult.

Bibliography of the History of Art -- This database indexes scholarly work on all aspects of European and American art from antiquity to the present. Tip: Limit your results set to "English" if you cannot yet read scholarly material in other languages.

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index. A searchable database of up to date bibliographical information on all topics related to the study of women and gender in medieval Europe gleaned from over 300 journals (1994-present).

JSTOR - multidisciplinary full-text archive of scholarly articles, with an embargo on anywhere from two to ten years of recent content.

Project Muse - another multidisciplinary full-text collection of scholarly articles; coverage does not begin until the late 1990s or later for most journal titles.

Depending on your research topic, you may need to consult additional databases! You can use the Research Gateway subject pages to identify additional databases that might be useful.

Obtaining Articles:

There are three methods for obtaining the actual articles you wish to read.

Method 1: In some databases, you will be able to link directly to the full-text article. If given the choice between a PDF or HTML version of the article, always choose the PDF format. This will give you an exact image, including page numbers, of the article as it appears in the paper journal.

Method 2: If a direct link to full text is not available, then check the Journal Locator to see if the library subscribes to the journal. Paper, electronic and microform holdings are included; be sure to check the dates of coverage for each format. Current periodicals are located on the first floor of the library; bound periodicals and microform are located in the basement.

Method 3: If the article you want is not available full text through the database and is not available in paper or microform format in the library, then request the article through Interlibrary Loan by filling out the form in ILLIAD, or, if available, clicking on the "ILL" or "Interlibrary Loan" button in the database. Often you will receive an electronic version of the article in less than a week.

Content contact: Peggy Burge ~ Collins Memorial Library ~ University of Puget Sound

Last updated: October 21, 2009