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:
Contains all the records cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Offers millions of bibliographic records. Includes records representing 400 languages.
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.
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present.
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. Artstor is now available on the JSTOR platform.
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).
Google Scholar is a freely available scholarly search engine that allows you to search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles – from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
A collection of materials pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). The platform contains databases, books, and journals.
List articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, and selected government publications published in the United States and Canada and some European countries on East-Central Europe, Russia, Soviet Union and the former Soviet republics.
You will also be able to find journal articles about religious history in some of the general journal collections.
ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials is the full text version of the ATLA Religion Database. This database provides a collection of major religious and theology journals selected by religion scholars in the United States.
You will also be able to find scholarly articles about the history of science in some of the general journal collections.
Reference books consist of encyclopedias and dictionaries that offer concise essays about specific topics. I recommend using these tools for three reasons:
(You can also use Wikipedia to find keywords and discover other sources, but please avoid using wikipedia essays as sources in your paper!)
Here are several reference book collections that are good for history topics:
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
For information about specific historical figures, try these collections:
Database of biographies of men and women who have shaped British history.
Access limited to 3 simultaneous users.
This database features full-text reviews from various periodicals, review citations, and master records for each book. It has retrospective coverage from 1983 to the present for a wide array of English language fiction and nonfiction books. This online version of the print edition is updated weekly and includes a vast amount of additional information.