| This guide will point you to some sources of information and research strategies for understanding Mesoamerican art. Feel free to consult a librarian at the reference desk, by phone (x7567) or via chat (gaclibrarian).
Books useful for defining words, places, monuments, and concepts.
In the reference collection, main floor
Palka, Joe. Historical Dictionary of Ancient Mesoamerica. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2000. (Ref F 1434 .H57 2000)
Evans, Susan Toby and David L. Webster, eds. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2001. (Ref F 1218.6 .A73 2001)
Carrasco, David, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America. 3 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. (Ref F 1218.6 .O95 2001.
Upstairs in the stacks
Adams, R.E.W. and Murdo J. MacLeod, eds. Mesoamerica. Vol. 2 of Archaeology of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. (Upper level stacks E 77 .N62 1996) Note - there are two books in "volume two" of this set.
Finding cited works
Bibliographies and reference lists found in scholarly books and articles are a tremendous resource for finding information. (Before the Web was invented, these were the hyperlinks that lead researchers from one related source to another - and they still work.)
To find cited works, first determine where to look.
Is the cited source a book? Search the book title in MnPALS, our catalog.
Is the cited source an article in an edited book? Search the book title in MnPALS.
Is the cited source an article published in a journal? Check our journal locator to see if that journal is in our library in electronic or print format.
Databases
If you want to see what has been published by a particular author or on a topic, try one of these searches.
Anthrosource - coverage of 32 journals published by the American Anthropological Association, with full text for many of them and links to JSTOR, where applicable.
Arts and Humanities Search - an interdisciplinary database of journal articles.
Bibliografia Mesoamericana - an ongoing project to collect references to books and articles on Mesoamerica, sponsored by the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies and the Museum Library of the University of Pennsylvania.
Google Scholar - Google's attempt to include scholarship in their project to index the world's knowledge. Includes references to books and articles that are not always in full text.
JSTOR - an archive of core journals in many fields; includes full text of journals from issue one, but not including the most recent 3 -5 years. There are many book reviews included in this database.
Web of Science - a vast database of articles in the sciences and social sciences, including history and archaeology. If you find an interesting source, try the "find related records" search to find more.
Library catalogs
MnPALS will tell you what is in our library.
WorldCat is a catalog of libraries around the world. We may be able to order some of these books through interlibrary loan.
Online book searches
Google Book Search - lets you search the content of books they have scanned from publishers or research libraries. Books that are within copyright often include only snippets or excerpts.
Amazon - Search Inside the Book is a feature that allows Amazon customers to search the contents of hundreds of thousands of books and read up to six pages; only available to those who have previously made a purchase at Amazon.
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