LibGuides at USA: HY 101: History of Western Civilization I: Getting Started

Subject Specialist

Heather Butler

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Contact:

University Library Room 250

Library Links

Library Hours
Marx Library Homepage
SOUTHcat: USA Libraries' Catalog
SOUTHcat is the catalog for the libraries at the University of South Alabama. Use this to find records for books, electronic books, media items, and government documents in our collection.
Databases & E-Reference
The list of electronic databases and reference sources subscribed to by the Marx Library. Use this link to find newspaper, magazine, and academic journal articles from a variety of sources.
Journal/E-Book List
The list of newspapers, magazines, and journals subscribed to by the library. Use this to search a specific periodical or to locate a citation.
Ask a Librarian
Contact information for the reference department at the Marx Library. Includes phone, email, and live chat information.

What are We Doing?

Evaluating Websites

Sometimes, it is appropriate to use websites as resources for research projects. Always evaluate a website for usefulness, accuracy, and trustworthiness before using the website as a reference. Even when using a website for personal research, always evaluate the likely accuracy of the content. This will help you avoid misinformation or disinformation.

You can evaluate a website by some criteria. You can use these criteria to form an impression of a website. If the website fails any of these criteria, it doesn't automatically make the website a "bad source":

Purpose & Audience
- Who is the site designed for?
- Is the site scholarly or popular?
- Are there advertisements on the site?
- What is the overall purpose of the site?
Authority & Credibility
- Can the author of the site be identified? (Is the "author" an organization?)
- Can the author be contacted? Is there any contact information?
- What are the author's qualifications? Do their qualifications show expertise on the subject?
- Is the site affiliated with a particular organization?
- What is the domain of the site (.edu, .gov, .org, .com)?
Accuracy & Reliability
- Does the site appear to be well-researched?
- Are there references supporting the site's statements or viewpoints? How well do the references relate to the site's claims? Are the references high-quality themselves?
- Is it easy to tell which references support which claims?
- Does the site include grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors?
- How does the site compare to library resources available on the topic?
Currency & Timeliness
- When was this information on the website published?
- Does the page indicate when it was most recently updated?
- Are there dead links on the page?
Objectivity or Bias
- Does the site present many opinions or just one?
- Does the site present opinions or facts?
- What biases can you identify?
- Is the site sponsored by a company or organization?
- If there are advertisements, are they easy to distinguish from the informational content?
Structure & Navigation
- Is the site well organized? Can you tell what content goes together?
- Is it easy to navigate between different pages on the site?
- Does the site have a search box?

Finally, ask yourself these questions:

Is this site a reliable, well-documented information source provided by a reputable author or organization?
Would this be a good source of information for my assignment?

Recommended Databases

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A collection of full-text journals in which the latest issues are at least 3 to 5 years old, but the holdings often extend back many years. The journals may be searched separately or by discipline.
Project MUSE - Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
A collection of full-text journals which provides current coverage of journals, including many of the titles in JSTOR.
Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
Backfiles for periodicals in the humanities and social sciences.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Full-text available for 574 journals.
Oxford Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Database of news, business and legal research. For educational activities only.
ProQuest US Newsstream This link opens in a new window
An index to over 500 newspapers, with 350 available in full text. Coverage for some titles goes back to the 1980s.

World Collections

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
Sponsored by the University of Alicante, this site is the largest open access repository of Spanish language historical texts and literature from the Ibero-American world.
British History Online
Includes full-text editions of primary sources, such as the journals of the Houses of Parliament. Most documents are from between 1500 and 1850.
British Library Digitised Manuscript Collection
The Digitised Manuscripts web pages give access to fully digitised manuscripts held at the British Library, with their descriptions. Full searching capabilities. You can also browse by manuscript, author, scribe, or title.
British Library Online Gallery
Offers access to 30,000 images from various medieval books and selected exhibition items. Also includes the facility to "turn the pages" of many important works, including the Magna Carta and Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.
Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World
An searchable interdisciplinary collection of materials for the study of patterns of gender around the ancient Mediterranean. Contains essays, a bibliography indexed by topic, 30,000+ images, and a selection of scholarly essays.
Duke Papyrus Archive
The Duke Papyrus Archive provides electronic access to texts about and images of nearly 1400 papyri from ancient Egypt.
European History Primary Sources
This site provides links to other primary source archives that primarily include documents from European history. The site is searchable by country, language, period, subject, and the type of source.
Europeana
A multi-lingual online collection of millions of digital items, Europeana includes treasures from European museums, libraries, archives, and multi-media collections. Among the institutions represented are the British Library, the Louvre, and the Rijksmuseum.
Gallica
The digital collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France include 120,000 scanned items; 65,000 full-text volumes; 1,000 audio recordings; and 110,000 images from French history.
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
A set of collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts, maps, and articles on a wide variety of historical areas. Organized by geographical area and time period, the site includes links to primary sources from not only the Western world, but Africa and the Islamic and Eastern world as well.
Islamic Heritage Project
Sponsored by Harvard University, the IHP includes more than 600 Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts.
The Internet Classics Archive
A collection of 441 works of mainly Greco-Roman literature by 59 different authors (all in English translation). Includes a search feature as well as user-driven commentary and "reader's choice" websites.
The Perseus Digital Library
This internet collection contains works from the Classic period, as well as collections of Germanic, Arabic, Renaissance and, 19th Century American works. The Art and Archeology Artifact Browser provides access to 1305 coins, 1909 vases, 2003 sculptures, 179 sites, 140 gems, and 424 buildings. Each entry has a description of the object and its context; most have images.
World Digital Library
A project of the Library of Congress, UNESCO, and various institutions from around the world, this site provides digital access to rare and unique documents from a wide variety of cultures. Formats included are books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings.

HY 101: History of Western Civilization I: Getting Started