Sourcepack

Instructor: Dr. Noah Heringman 

Background Resources

• The Gale Virtual Reference Library provides specialized online encyclopedias such as Science and Its Times and The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
• Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (Ref. PN55 .E53 2002)
• Reader's Guide to the History of Science (Ref. Q125 .R335 2000)
• Dictionary of Concepts in the Philosophy of Science (Ref. Q174.7 .D87 1988)
• Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science
• LION Reference includes a selection of literary reference works.

Finding Primary Sources

• The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists works of all sorts published prior to 1800 in English, many of which we have on microfilm. The MERLIN Catalog includes records for the titles held by MU and we can borrow others through ILL@MU.
• The Index to English Literary Periodicals indexes articles published in early English journals and magazines contained in the microfilm set English Literary Periodicals 1681-1914
  Note: This index is a work in progress, so you may also want to use the guide Accessing English Literary Periodicals ( SPEC-R PN5124.P4 A25 1981). See also the Chronological Listing of Periodicals by Decade.
• ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online provides the full text of works published in England in the 18th century.
• JSTOR contains the full text of over 300 scholarly journals, including early works, such as the Philosophical Transactions (1665-2004).
• Early American Imprints, Series I  contains the full text of books published in America 1639-1800.
  Although this covers only American publications, these are often reprints of materials originally published in Britain.
• The American Periodicals Series Online (1740-1900) contains the full text of journals and magazines published in the American colonies and United States, 1740-1900, and into the beginning of the 20th century.
• C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
• 19th Century Masterfile (1802-1906)
• Reader's Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)
• LION: Literature Online provides online texts of many English and American literary works with a search mechanism to facilitate text analysis.
  From the main LION menu, choose Search Texts to search for words and phrases within a specific work or group of works. The advanced search feature allows you to define a corpus by period, literary movement, author's gender or ethnicity, and other criteria.
• The Google Books project indexes thousands of books and allows viewing of books that are in the public domain, including most books published prior to 1925.
• The Internet Archive provides access to many texts, among other things.
• Through MERLIN, using the advanced search option
  • limit by date
  • include in your search s: sources 
  • include in your search s: sources and nth cent* e.g., s: sources and 16th cent* and marriage
  • include in your search s: early works and nth cent* e.g., s: early works and 16th cent* and marriage
  • include in your search s: personal narratives

MERLIN lists not only printed books, but also links to electronic books, and many items contained in large microfilm collections. Microforms and the equipment needed to view, print, or scan the materials are found in Special Collections. See the guide to the Microform Collection for detailed information on the microfilm sets, including some that are not analyzed in the MERLIN Catalog.

Finding Images

• British Library Images Online.
• Google Images can also be useful, although not as precise.
• The Associated Press Multimedia Archive contains photographs from 1826 to the present, as well as more recent audio and video files.
• Wellcome Images contains a large collection of images related to medicine and social history.

Finding Books

• The MERLIN catalog shows materials in the MU Libraries.
• The MOBIUS catalog shows materials from Missouri academic libraries.
• WorldCat shows materials from many libraries worldwide.
• The Center for Research Libraries
• NUCMC: The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections

Use these databases to identify articles on your topic. Click on  to locate a copy of the article online, in the library, or through ILL@MU. You may also access this service from the Libraries gateway under Find a Specific Journal or Article.

• LION: Literature Online is the main index for literary studies.
  • Choose Criticism & Reference from the sidebar.
  • Choose Criticism to search both the MLA International Bibliography and ABELL, the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature.
  • Choose Reference to search a variety of literary encyclopedias and handbooks.
  • Choose Web Sites for a select collection of links.
• Historical Abstracts
  • Use the advanced search option.
  • Note the ability to limit by time period.
• Philosopher's Index
• Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science
  • Published as a Supplement volume to Isis.
• The Current Bibliography in the History of Technology
  • Published as a Supplement volume to Technology and Culture, the most recent available was published in 2002.
• Wellcome Bibliography for the History of Medicine
• Academic Search Premier provides the core journals in all fields.
• Scopus covers many publications in the sciences and social sciences.
• Google Scholar indexes the full text of a broad range of sources. Follow the directions given here to link into library holdings.

Some interesting websites.

• Romantic Circles
• Romantic Natural History
• Institute and Museum of the History of Science
• The Wellcome Library on the history of medicine.
• The History of Science Society

This SOURCEPACK is a service of Ellis Library