BACKGROUND INFORMATION  

SUBJECT-SPECIFIC PRINT ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Find subject encyclopedias in the Reference Room of Feinberg Library by using the Advanced Search mode of the Library Catalog by subject using terms such as "Canad*" and "migrat* or "immigrat*".  Also Limit by collection to "Reference Coll."  The most comprehensive encyclopedia of Canada we own is

The Canadian Encyclopedia.  2nd ed.  Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1988.   F1006.C36 1988  (4 vols. -- General Collection)

We also have

The Canadian Encyclopedia: Year 2000 Edition. Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1999.   Ref. F1006 .C36 

Magocsi, Paul Robert, editor.  Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples.  Toronto ; Buffalo : Published for the Multicultural History Society of Ontario by University of Toronto Press,1999.   Ref. F1006 .E66 1999

 We offer FREE photocopying and digital scanning of print Reference material. Just ask at the Reference Desk!

ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Virtual Reference Library  --  A collection of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research

Xreferplus Reference Collection     [Link to overview and features ]
Contains over 2 million entries from reference books in all major subjects, 65,000+ images (art, diagrams, maps, and photos), and over 93,000 audio pronunciation files.

BOOKS 

Within Feinberg Library:  PlattCat  ("Search Feinberg" link on the Library Homepage)

Beyond Feinberg Library: WorldCat  (about)   ("Search Worldwide" link on the Library Homepage)

Search Tips:

         a.  start with specific word or phrase (e.g. Acadians)
         b.  broaden to topic as necessary (e.g. Canad*, migrat*)
         c.  search by subject and/or title for greater primary relevance

PERIODICAL ARTICLES ONLINE 

GENERAL (mostly):

Academic Search Premier 
Search this large, multidisciplinary, full text database designed especially for colleges & universities with articles from over 4,000 scholarly journals in full-text as far back as 1975 and indexing for articles in another 4,000 scholarly journals.

JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive -- Complete archives of 411 core journals in humanities, social sciences and sciences  

Project MUSE -- "...online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers."  

ProQuest Periodical Abstracts Research II
Search Periodical Abstracts II for information from over 1800 newspapers and periodicals on a wide range of topics including the arts, business, humanities, health, social sciences, sciences.

Wilson Omnifile Full Text Select
Full-text access to hundreds of magazines and journals. Covers from 1994 to present.

SUBJECT-SPECIFIC:

Canadian Periodicals Index
Full-text to many articles covering all of Canada.

America: History and Life
Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

Anthrosource
Provides a complete electronic archive of all American Anthropological Association journals and access to current issues of eleven of the Association's peer-reviewed publications.

Sociological Abstracts
Abstracts major sociology journals from 1974 to present.

OTHERS:

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 -- The Library of Congress collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states.  Part of the American Memory project (about).

Library and Archives Canada -- searches both the National Library and the National Archives of Canada 

Government of Canada Publications
Covers all types of Canadian federal government documents, including many in full-text.

Canadian Historical Association

WEB DIRECTORIES & SEARCH ENGINES 

Google -- "Google's index, comprised of more than 1 billion URLs, is the first of its kind and represents the most comprehensive collection of the most useful web pages on the Internet."  TIP:  Use the Advanced Search and/or Google Scholar (under the More >> link) options.

Clusty -- "queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This "metasearch" approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom."

This page was prepared by librarian Tim Hartnett and last updated on 02/20/2008.