History 401: The Resurgent Revoluton: The Making of Modern Nicaragua (Meyer): Home

1.   History Research should begin at the library web site found at http://library.richmond.edu/ and follow the link to Research Guides by Subject/Major.  Choose History and then choose the Course-Specific Guides or individual databases and web sites appropriate to your topic.  For classical history, go to the Classical Studies Subject/Major page.  You can access other subject areas, e.g., Art, Anthropology, Literature, Political Science, Women studies etc, when appropriate to your research.

2.   The research process will involve using many different kinds of resources.  Keeping a log of which online resources, books, journals, media, intelibrary loan materials, and manuscripts that were used will help you keep track of your research for creating footnotes and bibliography. 

3.   Catalogs, like the UR Library Catalog and WorldCat (for Interlibrary Loan only) are your best sources for books, primary sources, bibliographies, and reference works.  To find journal or newspaper articles you will need to use online indexes and fulltext databases.

4.   A good book or journal article can be a bridge to more primary research sources if it has footnotes or a bibliography.  Even books and articles in languages you do not read may list sources in languages you do read.

5.  Where available, use browse features of databases to discover subject headings used, because the same topic may have been assigned different subject headings over time.

6.   Keep in mind that many useful resources, and not just primary sources, are print works, and not electronic or Internet resources.  The Research Guides by Subject/Major library web page, focus primarily on electronic resources.