Subject Guide
Tips
- Need help? Ask a Librarian.Chat | IM | Text message | E-mail | Telephone -- Or come in and ask at a reference desk.
- Off-Grounds Access.Most databases are available only on Grounds, but ITC provides workarounds for home use.
- Refworks: Manage Your Research and Writing.A tool for managing a collection of articles and books for your research. Import the citation from one of our databases; export it into a footnote or bibliography.
- Library and ITC Accounts.Virgo | RefWorks | InterLibrary Services | Eservices | Proxy | UVaAnywhere | Home Directory | Wireless | Printing (Cavalier Advantage)
- Request a Purchase.Ask the Library to add a book, video, etc. to the UVa collections.
- Interlibrary Loan / LEO.Can't find what you need? Borrow the book, journal article, etc. from another Library.
Faculty: use LEO to have library materials delivered to your office.
Finding Journal Articles
Use Journal Finder on the library home page, or at the bottom of the Virgo search screen, to determine our online access for a particular journal title and to search a particular journal's contents.
- America: History & Life (1964-present) This link opens in a new windowCovers the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to present with records from 2,000 English-language journals published worldwide. Includes book reviews.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowFind articles about the history of the world from 1450 to the present, published in over 2,000 journals from many countries. Includes book reviews. Does not include articles about the US or Canada. For these see America: History & Life.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR provides access to millions of journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. The Archive Journal Collection is included.
API available, more information here: APIs for Scholarly Research - Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowProject MUSE hosts more than 800 journals and more than 90,000 books covering the humanities and social sciences from nearly 400 leading university presses, scholarly societies, and related publishers.
- Africa-Wide Information This link opens in a new windowCompiled by NISC in South Africa, Africa-Wide Information is an aggregation of nearly 50 databases sourced from Africa, Europe and the U.S. This comprehensive database collection integrates content from NISC’s South African Studies, African Studies and African HealthLine databases. Africa-Wide Information provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary information documenting research and publications by Africans and about Africa. This database comprises more than 3.5 million media reports, scholarly articles, books, theses, citations and document abstracts dating back to the 16th century.
Finding Books
VIRGO-- The U.Va. Library Catalog
Keyword search should be "Google-like," just enter whatever terms you want; no need for connectors like and.
Will search the title, author's name or description of the item.
There are also some Subject terms that indicate primary source materials:
Archives*
Correspondence*
Diaries*
Early works to 1800
Facsimilies
Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
Pamphlets
Personal narratives (used in relation to specific events only)
Songs and music
Sources
Speeches, addresses, etc.*
Treaties
*Used with individuals' names,classes of persons (e.g., soldiers), and organizations.
Google Books Searches the full text of thousands of books. If used in conjunction with Amazon.com full text search of a book, can get most of the text of a book.
Primary Sources
- Time Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowThe Time Magazine Archive consists of cover to cover processing dating back to issue number one in 1923 of the American popular magazine Time, published by Time Inc.
- Readers' Guide to Periodical LiteratureCall Number: AI3 .R48Publication Date: 1900-1990Index to popular and some scholarly periodicals, many of which are not indexed online.
- HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowAround 150,000 stories are assembled here from life oral history interviews with 2,700 historically significant African Americans including politicians, religious leaders, athletes, musicians, civil rights activists, soldiers, and many more.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowFull-text of newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from 200 ethnic, minority, and native publications in the U.S., in English and in Spanish.
- Gallup Analytics This link opens in a new windowGallup Analytics is an online platform that provides subscribers with access to nearly a century of U.S. data and a decade of global tracking data known as the Gallup World Poll.
- Polling the Nations This link opens in a new windowText of and responses to over 35,000 survey questions from over 14,000 polls taken in the US and 80 other countries since 1986.
- ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new windowInformation by and about the U.S. Congress: documents and reports, Legislative Histories, hearings, and members and committees. Search the Congressional Record, Federal Register, Federal Regulations, The Hill, and Roll Call. Formerly LexisNexis Congressional.
- U.S. Declassified Documents Online This link opens in a new windowSearchable collection of over 70,000 scanned declassified U.S. documents from the 1940s onwards taken from presidential libraries, the CIA, the FBI and other agencies. Covers the Cold War, Vietnam, the civil rights movement and other events.
- Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new windowOver 35,000 declassified documents used in foreign policy decision-making by the U.S. government. Includes some photographs. These documents have been gathered since 1985 through the use of the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive.
- Foreign Relations of the United States1932-present. Presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and diplomacy. Contains documents from the departments of State and Defense, the National Security Council, CIA, presidential libraries, etc. This searchable online version from the Department of State includes many volumes from the Truman through the Ford administrations. The print volumes are in the Government Information Resources Stacks, Shannon 3rd floor, call number 1.1
- Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and TrainingOral history interviews with hundreds of U.S. diplomatic personnel. Most inteviews cover the late 1940's to the 1990's, with some coverage from the 1920's through World War II. In addition to searching the collection, you can browse by a diplomat's name or by subject.
- Liberia and the U.S.: Nation-Building in Africa, 1918-1935 This link opens in a new windowPart of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this archive serves as a companion to Liberia and the U.S.: Nation-Building in Africa, 1864-1918. It consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by American diplomats, as well as records of American citizens and companies with relations to Liberia. It carries the story from the end of First World War into the interwar period.
- NAACP Papers This link opens in a new windowDigital collection of the NAACP’s archive of internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the U.S. It covers the organization’s involvement in crucial civil rights issues such as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing, etc.
Image Collections
- Life Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowThe Life Magazine Archive consists of cover to cover processing dating back to issue number one in 1936 of the American variety magazine Life, published by Time Inc.
- African PhotographyShowcases the work of West and Central African indigenous photographers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Created by Jürg Schneider, a researcher affiliated with the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, and Rosario Mazuela, who cofounded African Photography Initiatives.
- Autograph ABP’s Archive & Research CentreAutograph ABP is a London-based charity that works internationally in photography and film, cultural identity, race, representation and human rights. Patrons include Henry Louis Gates, Harvard-based historian of Africana.