Background or "reference" sources are a great place to start your research and can be extremely useful, especially if you're venturing into a new research area for your project. They include bibliographies, scholarly encyclopedias, historical dictionaries, handbooks, and other works that provide overviews of topics and suggestions for finding both primary and secondary sources.
Databases are collections of digital resources made up of a potentially wide array of materials, such as academic journal articles, historical newspapers, digitized special collections (e.g., rare books, archival papers), and more.
Why databases instead of Google
Use these guides to find resources on specific regions or subjects.
Subject-specific databases are a key resource for finding secondary literature, including the latest scholarly journal articles in the field, and the main subject databases for finding historical literature are:
Searching these databases will allow you to check for the latest scholarly articles, reviews of books, citations to book chapters, and more in a wide array of historical journals.