J400: After the Cataclysm: Legacies of World War I
Here are some resources that will help you get started on your research paper. If you need help along the way, feel free to contact the history librarian, Celestina Savonius-Wroth, cewroth@indiana.edu, use the Ask a Librarian service, or see below for other experts who can help. Best of luck!
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I. Background information
You might find these two collections of basic reference works useful: Oxford Reference Online and Blackwell Reference Online. They include books like Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, and Blackwell Companion to Europe 1900-1945, where you'll find overviews of important issues and events, along with good suggestions for further reading. There's also the Encyclopaedia Britannica (this is the complete version, not the free online version).
II. Exploring the existing scholarship on your topic
Use IUCAT to find scholarly books on your topic. Tip: start with a book from your assigned reading or from the bibliography of a relevant entry in one of the online reference books above. Search for it in IUCAT, then look at the subject headings and other pointers in the record to find more books on the same topic. Take your search further in WorldCat, a super-catalog of hundreds of libraries. Anything you find in WorldCat that we don't have at IU can be requested on loan --look for the "ILL" (interlibrary loan) link.
Historical Abstracts, an online index to scholarly books and journals in history, is another good place to start. Tip: use the Advanced search and search by Time Period. You can also limit by language, if you want materials in English only.
JSTOR is an online digital archive of scholarly journals. Use it to find book reviews, or search for a very specific keyword to find journal articles that discuss more obscure topics or individuals.
You might want to look for a review essay on your topic --an essay by an expert in the field, discussing recent scholarship. Here's how to find one.
Another way to find recent scholarship is to browse or search individual journals*, such as:
American Historical Review
Journal of Modern History
Social History
Past & Present
Central European History
French Historical Studies
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
(*if you have trouble with these links, go to the Online Full-text Journals page and search for the journal title)
III. Locating Primary sources
There are many primary source materials available in the library. When you search IUCAT for primary sources, use the Advanced search, and experiment with some of these subject words:
| anecdotes diaries pictorial works archives documentary films portraits biography public opinion |
interviews songs and music case studies manuscripts sources speeches comic books, strips notebooks, sketchbooks |
correspondence caricatures and cartoons statistics |
Remember that you can search by date of publication and language. You can use an individual's name as an author (to find his/her own writings) or a subject (to find materials about him/her).
For access to European journals and magazines for your period, try searching Periodicals Index Online. We also have a collection of European women's magazines on microfilm (see description) if you can read French, German or Dutch.
For official documents, also mostly in the original languages, check the Princeton University Library's Primary sources for historical research: Modern Europe. Note: use this to find out about materials you might want to use, then search IUCAT for IU Bloomington holdings --the guide is based on Princeton's collections. Ask our librarians in International Studies and Government Information for help. (Great Britain's House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1902-2004 are available online; most other European governments' official records for your period are not.)
You'll also find some valuable primary sources freely accessible on the internet, such as Modern History Sourcebook, a collection of primary sources pertaining to modern Europe.
If your topic relates to fine arts or to music, visit the Fine Arts Library or the Music Library for expert help. For other specialized topics see our list of subject specialists.
last updated by Celestina Savonius-Wroth, February 16, 2011
