Locating Sources in American History at CSUB -- A Guide

Curt Asher: American History Librarian

Most reference books are shelved on the first floor.  The reference collection is organized by Library of Congress call number.  Items that relate directly to US history are classified under E or F1-975 in the library of Congress classification system.  Some examples of historical reference books might include the  Handbook of North American Indians (Ref / E77 H25), the Encyclopedia of the South (Ref / F207.7 O27 1985), or the New Encyclopedia of the American West (Ref / F591.N46 1998).  Major bibliographies can also be found in the reference area.  Electronic books are also found among the reference sources in the catalog.

Instruction on searching for reference books.

The CSUB catalog lists all holdings in Stiern library. The library is divided into numerous collections.  Whenever you perform a search you will be provided with location information, which includes the call number, collection location and collection name.  All circulating books that begin with the call numbers A-L are found on the third floor.  All books with the call numbers M-Z are found on the fourth floor.

Library of Congress call numbers for history

You can perform two general types of searches in the catalog, the guided (keyword) search and the author/title (browse) search.  Normally, you will use the guided search for general topics and the browse search to locate specific titles, authors, or subject terms.

Search examples

You can use the CSUB library catalog's "bookbag" to build your own bibliography.  After performing a search and locating books you think will be useful to your research, place checks in the boxes beside the items you want to look at or use.  Select "bookbag" at the top of the catalog screen.  Follow the prompts in the dialog box.

The CSU union catalog provides access to the holdings of all the CSU libraries.  It also provides the option of ordering books directly from other CSU campuses.  Melvyl is University of California catalog.  Items found in the UC catalog can be obtained through Interlibrary Loan.

As a CSU  student, you are part of the largest university system in the United States.  You have free access to all books and journal articles in the CSU system through interlibrary loan.  You can access the forms for requesting journals and books from the Interlibrary Loan link on the Library Homepage.

CSUB students have access to four important databases that index history journals.  These are America: History and Life,  EBSCO's Academic Search Elite, JSTOR and Project MUSE.

America History and Life is the electronic version of a print index that has traditionally been the main means by which historians access journal articles. Many of the journals in this index will need to ordered through Interlibrary Loan.  Tutorial on searching this index.

EBSCO ASE is a multidisciplinary database that indexes a number of important history journals.  It is easy to search and contains to a large number of full text articles.

JSTOR is an searchable online archive of some of the most important history journals.

Project MUSE also has a large selection of history journals.

Both Project MUSE and JSTOR are entirely full text journal collection.

All print journals are held on the second floor of the library and are organized alphabetically by title. The vast majority of journals, however, now held by Stiern Library are available only electronically.

To determine if the journal you want to available at CSUB, either electronically or in print, you can check the CSUB Periodicals List, a search engine.  From the list you can link directly to electronically available journals.  If the journal is available physically, you can link through to the library catalog to check dates of our holdings and whether it is available in print or on microfilm.

The library has a number of published collections of primary source documents, such as diaries, travel narratives, interviews, and first-person accounts that can be located using the library catalog. 

It is not really possible to do in-depth archival research on the internet, but has been an effort to make more primary texts available electronically.  For example, the Library of Congress maintains a collection of full text first-person narratives called California as I Saw It and numerous  other collections.

The library maintains a complete set of New York Times microfilm dating back to the 1850s.  The indexes to the New York Times are located on the east wall, on the first floor of the library. 

The Historical Los Angeles Times 1881 to 1984 is available and searchable electronically.   This database allows you to search the full text of the newspaper, locate and print or email individual articles.

The Bakersfield Californian is available on microfilm for the 19th century and from 1971 to present. 

The CSUB Archives and Special Collections contains collections of materials, including the political papers of Harlan Hagen, Pauline Larwood, and the California Odyssey Project.  The California Odyssey Project was an oral history conducted in the late 70s and early 80s.  The transcripts of project have been digitized and are now available electronically in the Dust Bowl Collection.  They are also available in print in the reference collection at F868 S173 C35 1981.

Many archives maintain finding aids that can be searched online.  For a tutorial on  locating archives and archival records is available.

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