College of DuPage Library

Finding Books

Use the COD Library's book catalog to find books & videos. Click on the "keyword" tab to search using multiple search terms and limit your results by material type (book, video), date, or language.

I-Share

I-Share allows COD students to borrow books from over 80 Illinois academic libraries. You must have a current COD library card, and create an account to request books from an I-Share library.

Some suggested searches include searching by country. You can substitute any of the individual states or regions that make up the United States.

• United States - History - [Time Period]
• United States - History - [Event], example United States History Civil War
• United States - Politics and Government - [Time Period]
• United States - Social Life and Customs - [Time Period]
• United States - Civilization - [Time Period]
• United States - Intellectual Life - [Time Period]

You can also search by topic. For example:

• Northwest, Old
• Puritans
• Witchcraft - Massachusetts - Salem
• Women - United States - History

You'll need a current library card to check out books.

E-book Collections
Most books in these collections can also be located and accessed by searching in the Library's book catalog.

• ebrary

Collection contains many History-related books. Many e-books can be viewed from your computer or downloaded to your e-book reader. You need to create an account to download e-books to your device.

• EBSCO e-book collection

Collection includes some books on History. NOTE: Books can be viewed by single page on a computer, or, can be downloaded to an e-book reader. You'll be prompted to create an EBSCO account. The loan period for e-books is four hours. Books can be renewed after the initial loan period expires.

• Humanities (ACLS) E-book Collection

This resource includes over 1500 full-text, cross-searchable books in the humanities selected by scholars for their continuing importance for research and teaching. Pages from this collection can be printed and emailed.

Reference Works

Reference works, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are useful for learning about background information on a topic topics in History.

Please note that print reference books may be used while in the library only. Online reference books may be accessed from any on or off-campus computer. You'll need a library card to access online books and articles from off-campus.
Click on the links below to access the online book/website or record/description of the print book.

Encyclopedias

Databases

The Library subscribes to many databases that provide access to thousands of popular and credible, scholarly journals. Many databases provide access to full-text articles, while some provide information about the article only (citation). Request (for free!) through Interlibrary Loan copies of articles to which the Library doesn't have full-text access.

Article Databases - Best Bets

• Academic Search Complete

Multidisciplinary database covering a wide range of academic areas.

• Academic OneFile

Multidisciplinary database covering a wide range of academic areas.

• Annals of American History
  Writings and primary sources documents from more than 1,500 authors who made and analyzed American history through speeches, writings, memoirs, poems, and interviews.

• History Study Center
  Primary and secondary history collections providing access to rare British, American and world history sources, full text articles and reference materials. Includes multimedia sources.

• JSTOR

Excellent source for credible scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Articles in database were published between the early 1700s and between 1-5 years ago.

• Project MUSE

Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 500+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.
Click here to view a list of History-related journals

Newspaper Databases

• Chicago Tribune Historical - 1849-1889
  Digital images of the Chicago Tribune, cover-to-cover.

• HarpWeek
  Full-text articles and images from the 1857-1912 Harper's Weekly magazine covering the Civil War through the Gilded Age periods of American history.

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2009)
  Digital images of the New York Times, cover-to-cover.

Individual Journal Title List

Click here to view a list of History-related journals

Primary Sources

There are several areas where you can find primary source documents. Click on a link below to view lists of resources in each of these areas.

Reference Collection

• Early Civilizations in the Americas (v.3)
  Reference E 61 .B46

• United States Supreme Court Reports
  Reference KF 101 .U584

General Collection

• Annals of America
  General E 173 .A793 & Online

• Great Debates in American History : From the Debates in the British Parliament on the Colonial Stamp Act (1764-1765) to Debates in Congress at the Close of the Taft Administration (1764-1913)
  General E 173 .M64

• Historic Documents on the Presidency : 1776-1989
  General JK511 .H57 1989

• The World's Best Essays
  General PN 6141 .B8 1971

• The World's Best Orations
  General PN 6121 .B85 1970

To locate sources in the General Collection:

• Do an author search
  Anything written by a participant would be a primary source. For example, for a primary source about the war in Roman times, look up "Caesar, Julius" as an author and find his The Gallic War.

• Do a title search
  Some primary sources have no known authors. For example, a known primary source for Egyptian religious rites is the Book of the Dead also known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Doing a title search shows the Library owns several copies.

• Do a subject search
  Primary sources often contain one of these subheadings: sources, personal narratives, diaries, or correspondence. For example, look up Middle Ages and scan the results for those subheadings.
  Sometimes primary sources are found in broad collections with or without the subheadings above. Look up a broader heading and limit the search results to "source material" to find some useful collections.

Library Databases

• Annals of American History : Writings and primary sources documents from more than 1,500 authors who made and analyzed American history through speeches, writings, memoirs, poems, and interviews.
• Discovering Collection : Includes overview essays, critical analysis, biographies, timelines and multimedia elements. In general these are not considered to be scholarly sources, except for the primary source material.
• History Study Center : Primary and secondary history collections providing access to British, American and world history sources, full text articles, maps, and reference materials among other types of resources.
• Military and Government Collection : Although primarily concerned with U.S.history there are references to history and politics of other countries.

Websites

Who can publish on the Internet? Anyone.

You may find a website by doing a web search or through a recommendation of another student. Before you use a website for your assignment, you should evaluate the webpage for credibility, reliability, authority and purpose. Check out the CRAP Test for more information on evaluating websites.

The following websites have been evaluated for their credibility.

• Archiving Early America
  "Freedom Documents," such as the Bill of Rights, autobiographies, rare images, portraits, period music and maps.

• Birth of a Nation: The First Federal Congress 1789-1791
  Letters, newspaper articles, portraits, cartoons, and other sources related to the First Federal Congress.

• American Memory- A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
  U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates - 1774-1875

• The Founders' Constitution: Fundamental Documents
  Important documents related to the establishment of the United States, including the Continental Congress, Declaration and Resolves; Articles of Confederation and Constitution of the U.S.

• The Federalist Papers
  Letters supporting the then-proposed U.S. Constitution, written by Alexander Hamilton.

• The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
  "The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War."

• The George Washington Papers
  The complete George Washington Papers collection from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 65,000 documents, written by Washington between 1741-1799..

• The Thomas Jefferson Papers
  Collection of several essays written by Jefferson. Also included is a timeline of Jefferson's life.

• History Place - American Revolution
  Timeline of important events leading up to the American Revolution.

• Religion and the Founding on the American Republic
  Published by the Library of Congress, this exhibit demonstrates the religious convictions of early settlers. Includes books, manuscripts, letters, prints, paintings and artifacts.

• Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: A Collection of Digitized Books
  Over 1400 publications related to Abraham Lincoln, with a discrete focus on biographies of the man, slavery, and the American Civil War.