HIST 3304 (Dr. Stuntz): Local History

This guide should help you find primary and secondary sources for your research paper which are available in the Library or on the World Wide Web. The list is not comprehensive, so you'll need to use this as a starting point and ferret out other sources as well. If you have questions, stop by the Reference, Periodicals/Special Collections, or Government Documents Desks for assistance or call the Reference Desk at 651-2215. For additional help, contact Linda Chenoweth (x2212) or Steve Ely (x2231) and make an appointment.

Reference Sources

Reference books are one of the best places to start your research. Finding background information on a topic can help you prepare to search the library's online catalog and other resources. The Reference Collection houses basic information sources like dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, chronologies, and research guides. A selection of Reference books which you may find useful are listed below. Be sure to check Cornette Library's online catalog or ask a Reference Librarian to find more.

General Guides to Research

The Creative Guide to Research
ZA 3075 .R69 2000 Ref.
A guide to finding information both in print and available through the World Wide Web.
Student Guide to Research in the Digital Age : How to Locate and Evaluate Information Sources
ZA 3075 .S74 2006 Ref.
Step-by-step introduction to research process, critical evaluation, and specific information sources. Includes consideration of web content from as recently as 2006. A very well-presented blend of detail and introductory overview.
Dictionary of Concepts in History
D13 .R49 1986 Ref.
Identification and discussion "of some of the key concepts of contemporary historical analysis."
The American Historical Association Guide to Historical Literature
Z 6201 .A55 1995 Ref.
A two volume annotated bibliography "of the finest and most useful books and articles available in every field of historical scholarship."

Texas information

You likely won't use either of these as sources in your paper but may find them helpful for background and context.

New Handbook of Texas
F 384 .N48 1996 Ref. (available in print and online)
Encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture.
Texas Almanac
AY 311 .D3 T5 Ref.
Self-proclaimed encyclopedia of Texas. Annual editions back to 1936 in Reference; some earlier years in Special Collections.

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Books

Cornette Library's Online Catalog
Includes books, government documents, videos, journals, etc. available throughout the Library. Suggested searches include:
  • a keyword search for your subject, such as Stephen F. Austin.
  • the general LC subject heading Texas--History.
  • the LC subject heading for a specific time such as Texas--History--Republic, 1836-1846..

To determine appropriate subject headings for your search, there are a few approaches you can take. If a keyword search returns at least one relevant item, pay careful attention to the section of the record labeled "LC Subject Headings" and click on the links from the meaningful subject headings you find there.

For more detail, refer to the red Library of Congress Subject Headings near the Reference computers in the Library or search the online Library of Congress Authorities Catalog.

Some suggested subject headings include:
  • Canyon (Tex.) History
  • Cattle trade Texas
  • Dust bowl era
  • Petroleum industry trade Texas history
  • Pioneers Texas
  • Railroads Texas history
  • Frontier and pioneer life--Texas.
  • Texas--History--Sources.
  • Texas History Revolution, 1835-1836
  • Texas History To 1846
WorldCat
An online catalog for libraries around the world. You'll find books in Cornette Library's collection listed along with many more in other libraries. Search by keyword or browse by subject heading. You may request those books which are not available in the Cornette Library through Interlibrary Loan. Be sure to submit your requests at least two weeks before you will need them.
*Helpful Searching Tip*
Consider sometimes truncating terms with the applicable symbol. For instance, revolution? in our catalog will also find records with "revolutionary" and "revolutions." In WorldCat, the same search would use revolution*.

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Finding Primary Sources

Primary Sources are first-person accounts or original artifacts or documents created, generally when an event happened, by participants or contemporaneous witnesses. These may include diaries, journals, speeches (audio or transcripts), letters, interviews, some newspaper and magazine articles, photographs and original videos, political cartoons, poster, and some government publications such official records and legislation. Also of use, though created after the event, are oral histories, autobiographies, and memoirs.

One essential way of finding primary sources is to follow the bibliographies and notes in relevant secondary sources.

Another helpful tactic is to search in catalogs and databases for keywords and subject keywords reflecting the form of the item. For instance, important Subject Heading form subdivisions for this include:

Similarly, these terms, others mentioned above, and synonyms for them may appear elsewhere on a catalog record and therefore be good to search for as general keywords. Two especially good choices would be truncation searches for variations of facsimile or documents. For more about truncation searching, see the catalog section of our guide to finding primary sources in Cornette Library.

Here are just a few of relevant primary source documents as you'll find in our catalog :

Remember, these make up just a small sample of the primary documents to be found in our catalog

Digitized Archival Sources

The Portal to Texas History: Digitized letters, books, archival materials, and newspapers from Texas history
  • Official records, family papers, letters, scientific surveys, government documents, photographs, and more.
  • 50 different newspapers covering from 1813 to the present
  • Choose to explore by place, era, type of material, and then conveniently narrow results by form, county, decade, and more.
  • The "Explore by Locations" option should be particularly helpful for local history.
Bexar Archives Online
Documents the "military, civil, and political life of the Spanish province of Texas from 1717 to 1792" with "over 5,000 original documents (23,000 pages) that have been digitized from microfilm. Researchers may browse, by year, the originals and translations, or compare an original and its translation side-by-side. Full-text searching of the translations is also supported."
HeritageQuest Online
Access to page images and corresponding indexes for the entire federal census, 1790-1930. Access to over 25,000 family and local history books.
West Texas Digital Archives
This digital repository from the Abilene Library Consortium contains photographs, newspapers, yearbooks, letters, oral histories, periodicals, manuscripts, journals, documents, maps, audio files, and more.
You can browse or search its content.
Amarillo Public Library Photoarchive Collection
Over 1000 photos Amarillo-area people, places, and scenes dating back to 1860.
Not all records have date information, so not all relevant photos will be found with a search limiting results by date.

Again, these are just a few of the digitized primary sources we can offer you. For more, see our guide to finding primary sources in Cornette Library.

Microform Primary Sources

Our above-mentioned primary sources guide has a longer, more diverse list, but the below are the most relevant collections.

Texas as a Province and Republic 1795-1845
An excellent collection of valuable primary source material relating to the early growth of Texas, including its time as Spanish province, its colonization by Americans, its revolution, and its annexation by the United States.
A detailed bibliography is on the Reference shelves of the Microforms room.
Microfilm
National Archives : Records of the Work Projects Administration
  • Central Correspondence 1935-1944, State Series Texas
  • Selected Documents Relating to Road Construction in Texas
Microfilm. Two rolls altogether.
County Tax Rolls
Potter County tax rolls from 1879-1921 and Randall County tax rolls from 1881-1921.
Microfilm. 16 reels. (Most also include other counties.)

Map Resources

Historical Maps of Texas Cities from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Over 160 digitized historical maps of Texas cities.
Digital Sanborn Maps.
Scanned images of maps from 1867-1970 of more than 400 Texas towns and cities. Large scale maps at a scale of 50 feet to an inch, originally drawn for fire insurance purposes. Maps list street names, block numbers in existence when drawn.

For more information about finding maps, please see the Cornette Library's web page on Finding Maps

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Dissertations and Theses

Dissertations and theses are valuable secondary sources, not only for the analysis, insight, context, and understanding they can give but also for the bibliographies that will point you to relevant and essential primary sources.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database
Indexes over 1.6 million dissertations and theses from around the world.
Full text for most of the documents added since 1997.
Several dozen history works pertaining to West Texas, the Texas Panhandle, or the Llano Estacado.
WTAMU Theses
Master's theses from WTAMU history students are held in the university archives on the second floor of the library.
Dozens of these theses pertain to the Texas Panhandle and surrounding area.
Use our catalog to find history theses published at WT by searching for the words West Texas as a phrase along with the words history and thesis.

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Journal Articles

To find a journal article when you found the citation without using a database, browse our list of online journals or search Cornette Library's online catalog by journal title to determine if the issue you need is available in the Library's Periodicals collection. Journals are often available electronically and, when held physically, are on the library's second floor shelved alphabetically by title in the bound, microform, or current periodicals areas. If the Library does not have the journal issue you need, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan.

Cornette Library also provides a number of online resources for discovering and finding journal articles.

All of our online resources are available from off-campus as well as in the library. You will be asked to login: use your Buff Advisor username (for example, js123456) and your Buff Advisor password (for example, buffaloes).

History Resources

America: History and Life
Citation database covering the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Indexes 1,700 journals, to make this the most comprehensive index available for U.S. and Canadian history.
Historical Abstracts
Citation database covering the history of the world excluding the United States and Canada. Citations are from over 1800 journals in 50 languages with emphasis on English titles worldwide.

General Resources: Full Text

JSTOR
Complete coverage of full text and images of over 375 journals, except, usually, the most current two to five years. Covers many subjects, so it may be helpful to narrow the search by discipline.
Academic Search Complete
Contains abstracts and citations for a broad range of topics, with substantial full-text. Over 3,000 peer-reviewed sources.
Project Muse
Full-text of more than 250 journals. Focused primarily on humanities, with some coverage of performing arts, social sciences, and education as well. 25 of the journals continue coverage from JSTOR.

General Resources: Citations and Abstracts

Web of Science
Despite the name, this citation database has an Arts and Humanities Index and a Social Science Index, in addition to a Science Index. Focuses on high-impact scholarly sources and includes some really neat features, including "Cited by," Linked References, and Related Articles.

Finding Articles from Citations

While most of our online resources include the full-text of the journal articles they index, some only include citations. In such cases, take advantage of the SFX feature to find whether and where we have the article.

SFX logo Logo

Most of our database will include the SFX logo logo on the options for each search result. Clicking this link will open a popup window with several options for retrieving the full-text of the document. One or more of these choices will be shown:

If you would like more information about the SFX logo feature, please see the tutorial Using SFX to Link to Articles

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Interlibrary Loan

There are four principal ways to access the online form to request an item through Interlibrary Loan.

See here for more information about Interlibrary Loan.

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Newspapers

The newspapers below are Texas titles held by the Cornette Library. For a fuller list of Cornette's newspaper sources, see that section of our Primary Sources page.

With the exception of current issues, when available, the following newspapers are on microfilm. Microfilm reader/printers are available in Periodicals. Copies may be made using your Buffalo Gold card.

Check the catalog for the availability and dates of newspapers located in Periodicals or browse the newspaper microfilm cabinets.

We also have access to digitized newspapers from historical eras of interest:

America's Historical Newspapers
Fully searchable digitized content of approximately 1400 different newspapers from about 45 states, with publication dates ranging from 1690 through 1922, plus coverage of just the Dallas Morning News up until 1977. Helpful search limiters include 24 different historical eras, 15 types of articles, and many different specific places of publication.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers from the Library of Congress
Search for content in viewable digitized pages from hundreds of newspapers published between 1860 to 1922 from the states of Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
The Portal to Texas History
Includes fifty different digitized Texas newspapers covering over approximately 200 years.

Outside Sources

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Government Documents

Cornette Library collects United States federal and Texas state documents on many topics. Such government documents are often very good primary sources.

Most United States government documents published since 1994 are listed in the Cornette Library's Online Catalog. To find older documents, you will need to use the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications.

United States

Finding Government Documents
Overview of how to find government documents in the Cornette Library.
Cornette Library guide to U.S. Census information
A detailed guide to finding and using U.S. Census information online and through the library.
Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications
Indexes all United States government documents made available through the Government Printing Office. Includes all types of U.S. government documents, including Congressional reports, hearings, debates, and records; judiciary materials; and documents issued by executive departments (Defense, State, Labor, Office of the President, etc.). Dates available include:
U.S. Government Web Sites
Cornette Library's guide to finding U.S. government web sites by subject, agency, and title.

Texas

Texas Web Sites
Cornette Library's guide to finding Texas government web sites with sections on general guides, government sites, law and legislation, finances, resources for business, and local governments.

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Special Collections

The Special Collections Department is composed of the Frank M. Blackburn Reading Room, the Texas Poets Corner, and the Archives. Materials in these areas have restricted access and use of these materials in these areas requires special procedures. Materials in these areas may be identified through Cornette Library's online catalog.

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World Wide Web

The Web can be a useful source for finding primary sources and scholarly information as many libraries, archives, museums, and individual researchers have put digitized (scanned) images on their Web sites. You will also find secondary sources that can lead you to additional primary sources.

History Web Sites

Texas History Web Sites

Web Guides

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Citing Your Sources

The Chicago Manual of Style

You have subscription access through our web site to the online version of The Chicago Manual of Style. You can search or browse either the 16th or 15th edition. In the 16th edition, Chapter 14 deals in detail with citing your sources with notes and bibliography.

You may also find very useful their Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide.

Print copies of the Chicago Manual and of A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate Turabian, which presents the same citation styles, are available at the Reference Desk and on the Reserve Shelves at the Circulation Desk.

Why must I cite the sources I use for research projects?

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Your Comments

There's always room for improvement!

If you have suggestions for improvements or would like to comment on something you found especially useful about this course guide, please email Linda Chenoweth. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.

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