General resources
Background or "reference" sources are a great place to start in building your bibliographies. These are scholarly encyclopedias, handbooks, bibliographies, and similar sources that will often contain lengthy essays with background information on a topic and overviews of the relevant scholarship. Citations to the secondary literature will always be included, and often so too will citations to primary sources.
A key reference collection. Relevant works here include The Cambridge History of Latin America, The Cambridge World History of Slavery, Vol 4. (1804-2016), and The Cambridge History of the Cold War.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Latin American History
and
Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History
The Oxford Research Encyclopedias are a great starting point for your research. Articles here will usually provide suggestions for finding both primary and secondary sources.
Oxford Bibliographies
This is a large collection of bibliographic “articles,” each containing numerous bibliographic annotations, often of both primary and secondary sources. The collection is arranged into several modules - see especially the Atlantic History module for a number of potentially relevant articles.
Wiley Online Library
Relevant titles such as The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies will provide overviews of topics and suggestions for further reading.
See especially the History collections.
Useful, up-to-date information on 250 countries and territories. Includes coverage of recent events, political and economic information, and statistical data.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Includes the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences and other sources useful for quick references.
Main search portals
This guide is intended for students in Professor Edward Rugemer's course and provides an overview of key resources in the Yale Library for writing your research papers this semester.
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Yale Library Catalog (Orbis)Searches the books, e-books, journals, government documents, and other physical and digital items owned by the library. Individual journal articles are not retrieved by the search. Can be used to find both primary and secondary sources.
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QuicksearchA combined search of the library's books, journal articles, databases, and more. Searches Orbis as well as Morris, which is the Law Library catalog. Consider this a Google-like search of a vast amount of resources, but keep in mind some library materials are not indexed by the search. The search refinements and availability of multiple search fields are key to limiting the usually large number of results and finding the most relevant sources.
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Archives at YaleThe new search portal for finding archival materials at Yale. Look for the Scope & Contents notes, inventories, and PDF Finding Aids to assess the relevance of materials to your research project.
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Borrow DirectUse the Borrow Direct platform to find and borrow books from partner libraries when our copy is checked out or we do not own the item.
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Primary Sources at YaleAn engaging introduction to what primary sources are, how to find them, and what some of the major primary source collections are at the Yale University Library. Provides an excellent overview.
Off-campus access
To access Yale resources from off-campus, you will need to use the University's Virtual Private Network (VPN).
