Research Guides: History Research Guide: History Databases (secondary sources)

Finding articles in history databases

Articles can be used in historical research as

Primary sources, written at the time of the event (for example, a newspaper articles about the Apollo Moon landing, written in July 1969.)
Scholarly articles, written after the event, that offers a deeper analysis than just a timeline of events (for example, an article about 9/11 and the World Trade Center collapse on the 20-year anniversary of the event.)
Indicators of books that have been published on the topic. Many of these publications provide book reviews that can help you identify books on your topic.

Databases can help you identify the articles that are most relevant. Here are just a few of our history databases.

America: History and Life
The premier database for research on the history of the United States and Canada.
JSTOR Essential Collection
Full text online backfiles of core scholarly journals on many subjects. JSTOR's full-text coverage begins at the first issue of each journal and usually ends within five years of the present.
Project MUSE Standard Collection
Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. Contains current full text scholarly journals which cover these fields and a significant collection of recent scholarly books.
Academic Search Complete
Academic Search Complete is an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals with a multidisciplinary focus. Over 3,000 journals are available with full-text. Abstracts without full-text are offered for articles published in over 8,000 journals.
New York Times
Our Academic Site License provides full access to the New York Times, 1851-present. Access to the International New York Times and the New York Times in Chinese is also available. Users must register individually using a bvu.edu email address, which provides access for 364 days.

Iowa history sources

Articles about Iowa history don't often get picked up by databases that have a national focus, but there is a lot of information out there. The tools that capture articles published on Iowa history and still available in print. Here are some Iowa history bibliographies that are available in the BVU Library Reference section.

A Reference Guide to Iowa History, covers the late 19th and early 20th century, up to about 1940. Ref F 619.3 .P46 (1942 publication date)

Iowa History Reference Guide, overlaps with the previous volume and extends to articles published up until the early 1950's. Ref F 619.3 .P46 1952

Iowa History and Culture: A Bibliography of Materials Published Between 1952 and 1986 covers roughly 35 years of publishing output on Iowa history. Ref F 621 .D38 1989

Later publications (and some older publications) are now captured in the Iowa History and Culture Database, maintained at Drake University. As with the print publications, articles are sorted into broad subject categories, but keyword searching is available. There is no full-text or abstracts available, this is a simply indexing service.