TIPS FOR USING ARCHIVAL DATABASES

ENGLISH 590.08H/SPRING 2011

America’s Historical Newspapers

  • Select historical or presidential eras of interest.
  • Surround phrases with quotation marks, e.g., “Sarah Piatt”.
  • Do not search by [document type=poetry]. Not all poetry is indexed as “poetry”.

American Periodical Series

  • Surround phrases with quotation marks, e.g., “Sarah Piatt”.
  • Connect related and synonymous terms with OR; unlike terms (that you want to appear together in your results) with AND.
  • Note that on the right you can sort your results by publication, document type (e.g., poem), and keyword (gives you some idea of the frequency of appearance of certain key terms, e.g., bird).

Kentucky Historical Society

  • This is a little tricky to navigate, so consider it an adventure in browsing.
  • Under “Research and Genealogy” click:
  • The Martin F. Schmidt Research Library and Special Collections
  • Research Resources. On the right side, look for:
  • “Special Collections”
  • KHS Digital Collections Catalog
  • Kentuckiana Digital Library
  • Online Resources – The only resources you won’t have access to are “Subscription” web sites.

Library of Congress American Memory

  • Link defaults to “Browse Collections by Topic”.
  • Click “List all collections” at bottom of screen.
  • Every collection is different in terms of available finding aids, whether pdfs are available or whether materials are available in html only, and how each is organized. Explore thoroughly. You’ll have to do some poking around to discover everything that’s here.

Making of America (Cornell)

  • You can either browse or search this database.
  • When searching, select as many or few collections (book or journals) as you want by checking the boxes at bottom of screen.
  • Search engine does not recognize quotation marks around phrases, just the Boolean operator “and” that combines words. Use the search boxes and search forms provided.

Making of America (U. of Michigan)

  • Browsing and search engine similar to Cornell’s.

New York Times Historical

  • Note: You also can search Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and American Periodical Series from this database. Click on “Select multiple databases”, scroll down and check the appropriate checkboxes.
  • Select “Advanced” tab.
  • See “More search options” for ability to search by author.

Proquest Historical Newspapers

  • Change drop-down search box to Publication Title and you’ll have choice of publication titles and range of years, e.g., Chicago Tribune or Washington Post.