Locate books, serials, and some non-print materials by using DELCAT, the online catalog of the University of Delaware Library. Use WorldCat Local for information on materials held not only by the University of Delaware Library but also by libraries all over the world. Both may be searched by author, title, subject, or keyword. Advanced searching functionality is also available.
One useful straregy is to start with a keyword search, then examine the subject headings of retrieved records and use them to do further searching. Library of Congress subject headings are often not intuitive and obvious. Searches on relevant subject headings that you have identified often yield more focused search results.
For example, a search on the keywords (words adjacent) “social history” leads to a number of subject headings, gleaned from records retrieved. These include:
Birth control -- United States -- Social aspects
Energy consumption — Social aspects — United
States
Industries — Social aspects — United
States — History
Technology — Social aspects — United
States — History
Women — United States — Social
conditions — 20th century
Often the “social” aspect of a social historical treatment of a topic is not captured by Library of Congress subject headings. For examples, Kerry Segrave’s Vending Machines: An American Social History has the two subject headings: (1) Vending machines — United States — Social aspects and (2) Vending machines — United States — History, yet his Jukeboxes: An American Social History has the subject heading Jukebox industry — United States — History — 20th century (i.e., without “social aspects”). Always do a “[topic] — United States — History” search as well.
To locate articles published in serials (i.e., journals, magazines, newspapers, annuals), you generally must first use online databases or periodical indexes to obtain a citation. Online databases do not always provide links to full text; some include only citations (or citations and abstracts). In such cases, you will need to search in DELCAT on the title of the periodical, rather than on the author or title of the article, to determine whether the Library has what you need and where it is located in the Library.
Use WorldCat Local to locate books, serials, and other materials not owned by the University of Delaware Library, including articles published in periodicals. You may want to request the loan of a book or a copy of an article on interlibrary loan. This can be done easily from WorldCat Local.
The American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature.
3d ed. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Ref D20 .A44x 1995
Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
Ref E174 .D52 2003
Encyclopedia of American Social History. New York: Scribner, 1993.
Ref HN57 .E58 1993
Fritze, Ronald H., Coutts, Brian E., and Vyhnanek, Louis A. Reference Sources in History: An Introductory Guide. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
Ref D20 .F74x 2004
Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Ref HA202 .H57 2006
McDowell, W. H. Historical Research: A Guide. London; New York: Longman, 2002.
Ref D1625 .M32 2002)
The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Ref E174 .O94 2001
Reader’s Guide to American History. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Ref E178 .R43x 1997
Search for periodical articles to supplement your search for books on DELCAT. WorldCat Local provides access to some periodical articles, but also check these databases:
Check Databases for History for a more comprehensive list of licensed electronic resources for historians. If your research is in the area of women’s history check Databases for Women’s Studies; if in African American history, check Databases for African American Studies.
Google Scholar (Beta) is a subset of Google that retrieves only scholarly publications.
The University of Delaware Library is a partial “depository” library for U.S. government documents. With the exception of a small reference collection and many of the Congressional Serial Set volumes, shelved on the Lower Level, most U.S. government documents owned by the University of Delaware Library are shelved in the Library Annex. Each has a“SuDocs” (Superintendent of Documents) call number. Since the mid-1980s many government documents have been published on microfiche, on CD-ROM, and on the Internet.
Records for government documents are incomplete in DELCAT. There is good coverage in DELCAT from 1994 to date. For the period beginning in 1976, you can use the MarciveWeb DOCS database to identify published government documents that may be in our collection; if so, they would be shelved at the SuDocs number indicated in the record on MarciveWeb DOCS. For older material, you will have to rely on other tools. One of these is LexisNexis Congressional, particularly the Congressional Indexes, 1789-1969 component. It provides information on published hearings as well as documents included in the Congressional Serial Set. There are also excellent print indexes for hearings and the Serial Set, as well as a research guide for locating Congressional hearings in the Library.
GPO Access
GPO Access databases contain the full text of some of the most frequently used government information sources. Among the growing list of titles available are: Bills, Public Laws, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Congressional
Record, Congressional reports, Congressional documents, United States Code, Economic Indicators, Budget of the United States, Economic Report of the President, Supreme Court Decisions (1937-1975), and GAO Reports.
MarciveWeb DOCS
Index to United States government publications cataloged by the Government Printing Office, 1976 to date.
