Reference
The reference collection has an abundance of materials to introduce you to topics related to American Civilization. It is a good place to begin your research since reference books give an overview of a topic and frequently provide you with a bibliography for further reading.
- Almanac of American History
Ref E178 .M667 2006 - Encyclopedia Americana
Ref AE5 .E333 2005 - Dictionary of American Biography
Ref E176 .D563 - American National Biography
Ref CT213 .A68 1999 - Notable American Women
Ref CT3260 N57 - Encyclopedia of American History
Ref E174.5 .E52 1996 - American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History
Ref E174 .A535 1998 - Dictionary of American History. 3rd. ed.
Ref E174 D52 2003 - Encyclopedia of American Economic History
Ref HC103 E52 - Encyclopedia of American Political History
Ref E183 .E48 2001 - Encyclopedia of American Social History
Ref HN57 .E58 1993 - Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations
Ref E183.7 .E53 1997 - Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy
Ref E183.7 .H28 2004 1997 - Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture
Ref E169.12 .E49 2001 - Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century
Ref E740.7 .E53 1996 - New Encyclopedia of American Scandal
Ref E179 .N53 2001 - Documents of American History
Ref E173 .C66 1973 - Companion to American Thought
Ref E169.1 C685 1995 - Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes
Ref E76.2 .W351988 - Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture & Peoples
Ref E77 .P89 1998 - Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies
Ref E45 .E53 1993 - American Revolution: An Encyclopedia
Ref E208 .A433 1993 - Encyclopedia of the Confederacy
Ref E487 .E55 1993 - Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
Ref E185 .E54 1996 - Reference Library of Black America
Ref E185 .R435 1997 - Encyclopedia of New Jersey
Ref F132.E52 2004 - Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
Ref E184 .A1 G14 1995 - Reader's Guide to American History
Ref E178 .P27 R42 1997 - Term Paper Resource Guide to Twentieth Century United States History
Ref E741 .M83 1999
Online Catalog
The online catalog is used to located books in the RVCC Library collection and in libraries in Somerset County. The Library of Congress Subject Headings volumes may be consulted for appropriate subject headings. A few are suggested below:
- United States--History
- United States--History--Colonial period, ca 1600-1775
- United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783
- United States--Economic conditions
- United States--Emigration and immigration
- United States--Foreign relations
- United States--Foreign relations--Mexico
- United States--Foreign relations--Middle East
- United States--Politics and government
- United States--Social conditions
- Presidents--United States
- Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1823
- Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
- New Deal, 1933-1939
- World War, 1939-1945--United States
You may also consult other library catalogs to locate books on your topic from other institutions. If you would like to obtain these books from other libraries complete the Interlibrary Loan Form. and we will obtain the books for you.
Periodical Indexes
To locate information in periodicals (magazines, journals and newspapers) you must use a periodical index. See Magazine vs. Journal for a clarification of the differences.
Periodical indexes will lead you to articles on your research topic in periodicals. Some periodical indexes are on the World Wide Web and other periodical indexes are available as paper tools.
World Wide Web Indexes
All of the databases below are available on our Database Page
- Proquest Research Library -- a general, multidisciplinarydatabase that includes articles on a wide variety of topics including history. Full-text of many articles.
- Academic Search Premier -- another general, multidisciplinary database. Full-text of many articles.
- WilsonOmnifile -- Scholarly articles in many disciplines. Search Humanities Index or Social Science Index for articles on history. Some full-text available.
- JSTOR -- A searchable archive of journals that are at least 2-5 years old. All articles are full-text.
Paper Indexes
- Humanities Index (1974- )-- Citations to articles on Humanities topics including history
- Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature (1890- )-- Citations to current event articles in magazines. Because the index goes back to 1890, it is possible to find contemporary articles on now historic events.
- New York Times Index (1851- )-- Citations to articles in the New York Times newspaper. Citations to contemporary articles on now historic events.
These paper indexes are located on the index tables in the library. To determine whether the cited articles are available at RVCC consult the RVCC Periodical Locator
Internet Resources
- AMDOC: Documents for the Study of American History
http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html - American Civil War Homepage
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html - American History/About.com Guide
http://americanhistory.about.com/index.htm - Avalon Project at Yale Law School -- Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm - Presidential Libraries
http://www.nara.gov/nara/president/address.html - Wars for Viet Nam 1945-1975
http://vietnam.vassar.edu/ - WWW Virtual Library:History -- United States
http://www.ukans.edu/history/VL/USA/index.html - WWW Virtual Library: The Cold War
http://www.ukans.edu/history/VL/USA/coldwar.html