U206: Representations of the Holocaust

For obvious reasons, the Holocaust is one the most written about and ?represented? events in world history.  In researching a Holocaust-related topic, your challenge will probably not be finding enough material, but rather sorting through the huge amount of available material to find works that focus on your specific topic.

 

IUCAT

Use the Advanced Keyword search screen in IUCAT to combine keywords and Library of Congress Subject headings for more precise searching.

 

Here are some Library of Congress subject terms that may help:

 

holocaust jewish

holocaust jewish biography

holocaust jewish personal narratives

holocaust jewish juvenile literature

world war 1939-1945 atrocities

concentration camps europe

 

Use the format limit to find non-book materials in IUCAT. Select Manuscripts for unpublished written materials, Sound Recordings for audio resources (such as interviews) or Video/Slides, etc for videos and DVDs. To find still images, try limiting your search to the Bloomington Fine Arts Library, and/or adding this subject term to your search:

 

pictorial works

 

Journal Article Databases

Use the journal article databases listed here (Class Resources) to find research in scholarly journals on your topic. Many journals are available online: look for a link to full text or the IU-Link button in the database record.

 

Academic Search is multi-disciplinary. It  includes both popular magazines and scholarly journals. You can limit your search to ?peer reviewed? articles if you only want results from scholarly journals. However, Academic Search is an excellent source for book and movie reviews, some of which will be in popular magazines.

 

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature and MLA International Bibliography are good sources for research in literary studies. MLA also includes film studies, folklore, and linguistics.

 

Art Full Text and Art Index Retrospective cover fine arts and art history.

 

ATLA Religion Database covers religious studies.

 

ERIC is the main database for education.

 

Historical Abstracts covers scholarly journals in history. JSTOR is an electronic archive of scholarly journals in many fields, with coverage back to the first issues of each journal. It?s an excellent resource for tracing the historical development of an idea, an interpretive theory, etc.

 

International Index to the Performing Arts covers a variety of publications relating to theater, music and film.

 

The last three databases listed, AP Photo Archive, The New York Times, and the Times Digital Archive, are good sources for contemporary representations of the Holocaust.

 

Web Resources

A Google search for ?holocaust? returns almost 3 million hits!! How do you make use of such a huge quantity of possible resources? Listed at right are some Holocaust research sites that are good starting points. When doing your own web searches, be sure to ask yourself these basic questions about the web sites you find: Who created this page? Why? Where do the materials on the page come from? If it?s hard to answer any of these questions, check the information on the site in other sources before using it in your research. This is an approach you will take to any web research, but it?s especially important when researching a topic as sensitive and emotionally charged as the Holocaust. (For more ideas about how to decide if a specific web site is a good resource or not, see Evaluating Web Sites and Using Primary Sources on the Web.)

Citing your sources
As you know,  all the sources you use for your written work need to be documented, using an approved citation style. Here's a guide to the two most commonly used styles. Simplify your academic life with citation-management software, available for free to IUB students (from IUware page). For help, see IU's Endnote page.