Finding Books

For books at OU: use KL's Online Catalog.

For books at other MI libraries: use MeLCat (This statewide catalog of many of Michigan's libraries allows you to have books at another library be sent to Kresge Library for you).

For books at other libraries: use WorldCat (Items held by libraries outside of MI can be requested for inter-library loan via ILLiad).

Journal Article Databases

America: History and Life

A multi-disciplinary bibliography of articles, book reviews, and dissertations dealing with the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

JSTOR

A database of hundreds of full-image journals in a variety of subject areas, including history and anthropology. Coverage of most journals extends back to the journal's first issue (sometimes in the 1800s) up to, but not including the last few years.

Project Muse

A database of over 100 full-text journals in the humanities and social sciences. Coverage extends back to the last few years.

History Cooperative

Contains full-text articles from twelve history journals for the past few years.

To find articles that are not available online in one of the databases above, be sure to use the link to determine if the article is available online in another library database or in print in the library.

Primary Sources

Early American Imprints, Series I

A very valuable resource for research on 17th and 18th century America. This full-text historical collection contains books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America between 1639 and 1800.

Kresge Library tutorial on Early American Imprints.
Early American Imprints help pages.

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (online edition)

Jesuit Relations (print edition): . F1030.7 Z8965, 3rd floor KL

Library of Congress, American Memory

American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

Citation Searching

A very effective research strategy is to consult the reference lists and bibliographies of books and articles that you find. This should help you identify other valuable materials on your topic. Your next step is to determine whether KL owns that book or journal article.

e.g.: Suppose you find the following citation in the bibliography of a book or article you're reading:

Copeland, D. (2002). Securing the affection of those people at this critical juncture: Newspapers, native Americans and the French and Indian war, 1754-1763. American Journalism, 19(4), 37-66.
 
Check to see if KL owns this journal (American Journalism) by searching Kresge Library’s Online Catalog. (Be sure to perform a Journal Title search using the title of the journal — NOT the title of the article.) If Kresge Library does not have this article, you can order a copy through ILLiad.

Contact Information

Librarian

Dominique Daniel
244 Kresge Library
email: daniel@oakland.edu
phone: (248) 370-2478

Reference Resources

Handbook of North American Indians

Call number: SI 1.20/2:
Location: Gov. Documents - 1st Floor North, Room 154 KL (Non-Circulating)

Citation and Writing Resources

RefWorks

An online citation management tool to help you organize and format your citations.

Main steps to using RefWorks

Step 1 —Log in to RefWorks. (If you do not have an account, first create one. Be sure that you give your OU e-mail account when you register.)

Step 2 —Export records from databases (click on name to get to instructions): America: History and Life, JSTOR, ProjectMuse and Early American Imprints.

Step 3 —Create folder/folders for your bibliographic records and place the imported references into the folders .  A reference can be placed in more than one folder. (View “Organizing your references” tutorial.)

Step 4 —Export references from the Library Catalog.

Step 5 —Add references manually.  Sometimes you have references that you find in books and bibliographies that you need to add “by hand.”  

Step 6 —Create a bibliography from your references.

General Library Information

MeLCat

Interlibrary Loans via ILLIAD

Ask a Librarian

Floor map of Kresge Library