HIST 33000: History Workshop

Reference tools provide background information, the who, what, where and when -- and a bit of the how and why -- for any historical topic. They include subject and biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias, almanacs, chronologies, directories and atlases. Many, especially dictionaries and encyclopedias, are now available online. Many others, especially historical atlases and chronologies are still only available in print.

General

• Encyclopaedia Britannica online
  • access to the most reputable online general encyclopedia
    
• Oxford reference online Premium
  • access to dozens of Oxford University Press online reference tools
• Gale virtual reference library
  • access to dozens of Gale online reference tools
    
• Reference Universe
  
  • access to hundreds of print and online reference tools from various publishers
• Cambridge histories online  
  
  •  full text online access to the complete 250-plus volumes of Cambridge Histories reference series.
• Wikipedia:
  • Wikipedia can be a great quick help in identifying the "who, what, when and where" of any given issue especially relating to popular culture -- subject to later verification. Librarians use it all the time. However, it can be very suspect about "how and why" questions -- especially conflicts situations. Use it -- but use it with caution!

Examples

All titles are located in the General Reference Collection (1st floor, Hesburgh Library) unless otherwise noted.

• The Annual Register of World Events [1758 to date], D 1 .An78 v. 250
• Chronology of World History, D 11 .M39 199
• Encyclopedia of Russian History (4 vols), DK 14 .E53 2004
• Placenames of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, DK 15 .R66 1996
• The Russian Empire and Soviet Union: a Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Materials in the United States, DK 17 .G7
• The Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia, DK 38 .C436 1995
• The Times Atlas of World History, Atlas Oversize Cases G 1030 .T54 1994
• Atlas of States: Global Change 1900-2000,  G 1046 .F2 C5 1999
• The Routledge Atlas of Russian History, G 2111 .S1 G53 2007
• Penguin Atlas of the Disasporas, GN 370 .C43 1995
• International Historical Statistics: Europe, 1750-1993, Hesb Gen Collection HA 1107 .M5 1992
• Historical statistics of the United States colonial times to 1970.
• American national biography 
• Oxford dictionary of national biography
• Ancestry library edition  
• Biography and Genealogy Master Index

Our print reference collection is arranged by Library of Congress Classification System. This means that similar subjects will be together on the shelf for easy browsing. Historical materials are arranged by time period and geographic location, i.e., political units. For example, British, English, Scots, Welsh and Irish history are selved near each other in the "DAs." However, since it's impossible to map the global arrangement of countries onto a linear call number system, there will be anomalies. Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are in DB, then France in DC and Germany in DD. Countries divide and reunite, people migrate, languages change. Call number don't -- at least not quickly. Therefore, you must be particularly sensitive to such changes and flexible in your research strategies.