Research is an adventure. It's open-ended, exploratory, surprising, frustrating. and full of blind alleys and interesting side trips. It doesn't have to be lonely. Do compare notes with your colleagues and take advantage of the friendly people sitting at the reference desk. We love to help you find what you're looking for.

Reference Works / Finding Books / Finding Articles / Finding Journals / Web Sites /

Interlibrary Loan / Citing Your Sources

Reference Works
Reference works can be found on the second (main) floor (though a few are available online) and are an excellent place to begin your research. Some provide quick facts while others contain scholarly overviews. In addition to the ones listed below, browse the nearby shelves. Books in this library are grouped by subject, so you are likely to find other useful books in the same area.

• Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience.2nd ed. 5 vols. New York: Oxford, 2005. (Ref DT14 .A37435 2005) A rich compendium of information about the African diaspora edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates.
  

• American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1997. (Ref  E 184 .A1 A63448 1997) Covers culture groups from Acadians to Zoroastrians, covering each groups defining features, patterns of cultural variation, immigration history, demographics, andcultural characteristics.
  

• Atlas of Asian-American History. New York: Facts on Files, 2002. (Ref E184.O6 A89 2002) Provides a history of Asians in America focusing on the issues of immigration, migration and racial discrimination. Many photographs, pictures, maps and charts accompany the text. Focuses on major immigrant groups including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Asian-Indian, Filipino and Southeast Asian peoples.
  

• Countries and their Cultures. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 2001 (Ref GN 307 .C68 2001) Covers ethnic relations, cultural features, political life, the arts, etc.
  

• Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, and Society in the United States. 4 vols. Danbury: Grolier, 2005. (Ref E 184 .S75 E587 2005) Covers Latinos in the United states in over 650 essays that tackle topics from baseball to Zorro, significant places, groups of people, event, and more. The fourth volume includes significant primary source documents.

• Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. 6 vols. New York: Scribner's, 2002. (Ref DS 4 .L48 2002) Intended to be the most comprehensive standard reference work on the region, this set covers East, Southeast, South, Central, and West-Southwest Central Asia, from Japan to Turkey, Khazakstan to Indonesia. The focus in on the twentieth century, with articles covering places, peoples, geography, the arts, economics, religion, and more.
  

• Encyclopedia of World Cultures. 10 vols. Boston: G.K. Hall 1991-- . (Ref GN 550 .E53 1991)
  Covers over 1,500 culture groups, alphabetically arranged within regions.  Summarizes information on the  distribution, belief systems, kinship structures, and history of the groups.
  

• Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. 2nd ed. 4 vols. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2004. (Ref DS 43 .E53 2004) Covers a wide variety of topics in politics, history, economics, religion, sociology, culture, and geography of 23 predominantly Muslim countries. Articles are intended for a non-specialist readership, and controversial issues are covered in a non-partisan manner.
  

• Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Detroit: Gale, 1998 (Ref E77 .G15 1998) Offers surveys of tribes, including history, migration, subsistence, modern history, and current issues. Use the index to locate nations that may have more than one name in use (e.g. Anishinabe / Ojibwe / Chippewa).

• Racial and Ethnic Relations in America.  3 vols. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2000. (Ref E 49 .R33 2000) A good place to define terms, get historical context, or find short overviews of topics.
  

See also our guide to Ethnic and Area Studies for more reference works and selected Web directories devoted to a particular population or region of the world.

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Finding articles

Databases for articles and other materials offer references to publications that may or may not be in this library; some databases offer full text of articles and others simply citations. There are in-depth databases that cover publications in a particular field and others that are interdisciplinary. Databases can be accessed from a drop-down list on the library's main page; descriptions can be found here.

Academic Search Premier
Searches both general magazines and scholarly journals on a wide variety of topics. Some are full text; others are merely citations to things that have been published. One way to limit a search is to check the "scholarly (peer reviewed) journals" box to exclude popular magazines from your search.

LexisNexis Academic Universe
Search current news, business information (including business news and corporate financials), and legal news and information. International news sources are also included.

New York Times Historical
The full text of the New York Times from 1851 to 2003 - covering the entire publishing history of the newspaper back to the first issue. The newspaper text is fully indexed and searchable and the database also contains full-page images, including graphics.

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Finding Journals

• Journal Locator: Find out if we subscribe to a particular journal, either online or in print
• Interlibrary Loan: If the journal is not available in print or full text at Gustavus, you may request copies of articles through Interlibrary Loan.

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Web Sites

Use the Web with care

Libraries often pay for services through the web; these aren't indexed in search engines Some "free" sites for magazines and newspapers charge for using their archives; library databases offer them at no charge. Some questions are easier to answer through the web than others. If it has to do with current events, the law, opinions, computers, popular culture, commercial products, organizations, or government affairs, the web offers a lot; if you're looking for research or scholarship, you aren't as likely to find what you want (though in some fields that is changing). Not everyone wants to give their research away for free.

Planning a search

• Think about what you need and which key words might describe it
• Think about what organizations or government entities might provide information on your topic
• Use what you find to refine your search (such as the name of an organization, a government agency, a site that everyone is linking to)
• Use selective directories if you have a broad topic (Search engines work best for narrow topics or specific facts.)
• Use an appropriate database if you aren't finding quality material

Use clues in the URLs to assess potential sources

• edu = higher education (usually in the US)
• gov = federal government
• k12 = primary or secondary school
• com = company (often personal sites, too)
• org = organization
• net = network
• country abbreviations: ca (Canada); au (Australia); uk (United Kingdom) jp (Japan); se (Sweden) . . .

Be prepared to

• shorten a URL to get to a root page by deleting everything after the first /
• follow links to find out about the page's author or sponsoring agency

Evaluate!

• Who is the author? Why should you trust him/her?
• Where does the site come from? An organization? An individual? Which country?
• When was it put together? Is it frequently updated?
• What does it say? Does it make sense? Does it back up its claims?
• Why is it there? What is the author's purpose in presenting this information and does that purpose suggest a particular bias?

For Practice: Evaluate these three examples:

• Example One
• Example Two
• Example Three

How does this example differ from the first three?

• Example Four

Finding Web sites

In addition to general search engines, use these selective Web directories to find useful sites:

Infomine - a database of scholarly Web sites maintained at the University of California
Librarians' Index to the Internet - a more general guide to valuable Web sources, also based in California
Scout Archives - maintained at the University of Wisconsin
World Wide Web Virtual Library - the original Web directory

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Interlibrary loan

We can order books and articles from other libraries if you need something we don't have. For more information, visit the interlibrary loan page.

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Citing Your Sources

Citing Your Sources -- Includes basic models for MLA, APA, and Chicago citations as well as a link to a more detailed online guide and sample papers. If you're confused about whether you should cite a source or not, take a look at this explanation of plagiarism from the Purdue Online Writing Lab.