Secondary Sources are secondhand sources. They were created by historians who drew their information from primary sources. The most typical types of secondary sources are books and academic journal articles.
Historians find some of their best books by browsing the shelves. Open the document below for a guide to browsing the Gorgas Library for history books:
HathiTrust is a partnership of research institutions committed to digital preservation of the cultural record. The Digital Library provides access to public domain and some in-copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.
Materials are available to the extent permitted by copyright law.
HathiTrust catalog records are included in Scout, but not in the Libraries’ Catalog.
Images of the full text of many scholarly titles in a range of subject areas, including literature, biological sciences, economics, finance, and statistics. Search the archive or pull up a specific article.
Project MUSE provides full-text access scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. The database is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and other university presses and not-for-profit publishers. Also included are the UPCC collections in Asian and Pacific Studies, and Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.
Provides historical and cultural coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from journals published worldwide.
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present.
Web of Science (formerly Web of Knowledge) offers a wide range of interdisciplinary content. Also included: prominent journals and conference proceedings, Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1985-present); Science Citation Index (1955-present); and Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present).
GreenFILE is a freely accessible research database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond. Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE draws on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology.
Dissertations & Theses can be used as secondary sources and in some cases it may be easier to find a dissertation or thesis that addresses your specific topic.
Searchable and browsable database of dissertations and theses from around the world, 1743 to present.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: Global (PQDTGlobal) is the world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses. As the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress and as the database of record for graduate research, PQDTGlobal includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Over 2.1 million titles are available for purchase as printed copies. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full-text coverage for older graduate works. It also includes PQDT UK & Ireland content.
More than 70,000 new full-text dissertations and theses are added to the database each year through dissertations publishing partnerships with 700 leading academic institutions worldwide, and collaborative retrospective digitization of dissertations. Full-text dissertations are archived as submitted by the degree-granting institution. Some will be native PDF, some PDF image.
Each dissertation published since July, 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Simple bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637. Where available, PQDTGlobal provides 24-page previews of dissertations and theses.
Subject coverage
Note: Full text for certain publications is subject to market availability.