IB History

Topic Selection

Good Topics:

1) can be supported with substantial information, including primary sources

2) discusses origins, purpose, value, and limitations of sources

3) does not cover events of the last twenty years. Remember: Good topics are researchable, debatable, have a manageable scope/size and are interesting to you! Think about people, places, events and ideas that you want to learn more about.

Databases:

Search Academic Sources: Academic One File
Search History Collection: US History Collection

eBooks

History in Dispute by Benjamin Frankel – Addresses debated questions by offering critical perspectives on major historical events, drawn from all time periods and parts of the globe.

American Era’s: 1600-1899 – Select a volume using the grey drop down box. Then use the table of contents below to browse the topics covered for the era.
American Decades: Primary Documents 1900-1999 – Select a volume using the grey drop down box. Then use the table of contents below to browse the topics covered for the decade.
American Decades Series – Select a volume using the grey drop down box. Then use the table of contents below to browse the topics covered for the decade.

Off-Campus Access

For home access: passwords are found in Schoology. Ask your teacher or librarian!

Historical news

Search old newspapers (think about date, location, and event)

Newspapers.com – access only at school! 4,300+ newspapers from the 1700s–2000s
Michigan Digital Newspaper Portal – Links provide access to some free and some paid newspaper archives
Chronicling America- Library of Congress – Search America’s historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Google News Archive

Google Archived Newspapers – Browse titles
Google Advanced News Search – Search by location and date

Google Cultural Institute – exhibits and collections from museums and archives all around the world. Check out “Historic Moments” for online exhibits.

Museums and Archives

Where is your ideal location for primary source information (a city, state, or country? library, museum or archive? university?)

Digital Public Library of America – Search thousands of texts, images, audio files, video files, and other resources digitized by libraries and other organizations in the United States.
World Digital Library– Primary materials from countries and cultures around the world (focus on UNESCO member countries). Free of charge and in multilingual format.
Opening History:– U.S. History Resources from Libraries, Museums, and Archives
Library of Congress- USA
National Archives- USA
Access to Archival Databases (National Archives)
National Museum of American History
Voice of the Shuttle: U.S. History – Collection of history resource links, categorized and organized (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Vincent Voice Library – Michigan State University – audio library dating back to 1888
Archive of California – The Online Archive of California (OAC) provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.
US Dept of State Office of the Historian
Archive.org – search video, audio, music and text
Hathi Trust – HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. There are more than 90 partners in HathiTrust, and membership is open to institutions worldwide.
Eurpoeana – check out exhibits!The European Library is the library aggregator for Europeana, and part of the Europeana family of services.The European Library offers access to the collections of national and research libraries in 46 countries. Researchers can cross-search over 200 million records, including over 24 million pages of full-text content and 10 million digital objects.
European Library

Primary and Secondary sources

Primary Sources (social sciences and humanities): Primary sources of information provide first-hand accounts of the event you are researching. Generally, they are works created by the witnesses or “first recorders” of the event at or near the time it occurred. They are important sources of information to historians.

Examples of primary sources may include:

contemporary accounts in newspapers, magazines and other publications from the period in question;
letters, diaries, autobiographies or memoirs, photographs;
government documents, reports, financial records, memos
creative works or other materials.
ALA: Finding and using primary sources – From the American Library Association

Secondary Sources: Secondary sources are created by people who were not a witness to the event. They describe, analyze, interpret, or review the event (or the primary source). Secondary sources are likely written years after the event of interest and include additional perspectives and historical context. Recent works are valued because they include criticism and updates to scholarly knowledge on the event or topic of interest. Example of secondary sources may include:

scholarly books or articles
encyclopedias

Oakland University

OU Library Guide – Resources from Oakland University
Renew your OU books

Google Scholar

Search for academic publications:Follow citations (look up authors or the works they cited!)

Google Books Search

Previews or full text of books may be available here: Search for keywords within text