Index Islamicus is a great source for Islam, obviously, but it’s also good for all the lands and peoples that have come into contact with Islam, which is a pretty vast field. Look at the six citations I quickly retrieved from Index Islamicus and downloaded into Refworks.
Have you encountered frustration in fetching the full text of an article when using the library’s research databases? We have some good news for you. We are pleased to announce the arrival of TUlink, a new service of the Temple University Libraries.
With TUlink, the research process is greatly streamlined. TUlink acts as a bridge between a citation in a database and the full-text of the article in a different database–removing a number of formerly necessary steps.
When the citation you find in a database doesn’t have the full-text immediately attached to it, look for the TUlink icon:
Clicking on this icon will perform a search of our full-text resources and when possible give you an “Article” link directly to the full-text of the article. In other cases you will see a “Journal” link to the electronic copy of the journal in which your citation was published. TUlink can also get you to information on journals held in the library on paper.
If no full-text is available you will be offered an interlibrary loan link to request the article from another library.
TUlink is a work in progress. Currently enabled databases include all the EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premier, ERIC, MLA, PsycInfo, etc) and CSA databases (Criminal Justice Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, etc) and numerous others. Other databases will be enabled on an ongoing basis.
See more details on using TUlink.
–Derik A Badman, Digital Services Librarian
Take a look at the library’s recently subscribed suite of online-only “survey” journals called Blackwell Compass, available from the All Databases list. It’s made up of six journals from the following disciplines: History, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Geography, and Language and Linguistics. Each of the journals is broken down by topic area. For instance, Philosophy Compass is broken out into Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art; Continental; Epistemology; Ethics; History of Philosophy, and the like. Religion Compass is divided into African Religions; Ancient Near East; Buddhism; Chinese and Japanese Traditions, etc. One thing to keep in mind as you are using these is that the journals are very recent–in some cases started only in 2007–and that some topic areas do not yet have content. (In fact, just as I was writing this post a new one, Sociology Compass, became available.)
Here’s how Blackwell describes these journals:
“Each Compass journal publishes peer-reviewed survey articles from across the entire discipline. Experienced researchers, teaching faculty, and advanced students will all benefit from the accessible, informative articles that provide overviews of current research.”
As the deluge of information becomes faster, wider, deeper, survey journals are one way to stem the tide and bob for air. They have been popular in science publishing for a few years now (see Nature Reviews from the Nature Publishing Group) where access and currency are at a premium. In the humanities and social sciences, with so much information to choose from and where interdisciplinarity is increasingly common, it’s very important to be able to go right to the heart of the current literature and debates of a topic. It’s a great time saver.
In History Compass, I did a simple keyword search for greek or roman and came upon an article on Ancient Greek Mercenaries (664–250 BCE). It was 16 pages in length, with a bibliography of 19 primary sources and over 100 secondary sources. In Literature Compass, I did a simple keyword search for autobiography and found an article on Victorian Life Writing, which was 17 pages with a lengthy bibliography as well.
Along with the survey articles, there are also “Teaching and Learning Guides”, in which the authors of articles pose a few research questions on their topic and then offer articles, books, and web sites that help address these questions. For instance, Karl Gunther wrote The Origins of English Puritanism and also A Teaching and Learning Guide For: The Origins of English Puritanism. The Teaching and Learning Guides are about two pages in length and are only available selectively.
One gripe I have with Blackwell Compass is that there’s no way to search across all the Compass journals. If you are researching the ancient world, for instance, you would very likely want to search history, literature, philosophy, religion, and language and linguistics. In addition, the loosening of disciplinary boundariesover the past few decades makes this kind of broad search very important. You can leave the Compass journals and go to Synergy, Blackwell’s online journal platform, and select just these journals to search, but this seems unnecessarily complex. Hopefully this is a problem that will be fixed in coming iterations of Blackwell Compass. In the meantime, check out these journals and let me know what you think.
Let’s say you want to study witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Where would you look for resources?
Step 1: Find synonyms from Oxford Reference Online (it contains a bunch of thesauruses).
witchcraft noun
sorcery , (black) magic , witching , witchery , wizardry , thaumaturgy , spells , incantations ; Wicca ; Irish pishogue .
(From The Oxford Paperback Thesaurus in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
witchcraft noun
witchery , sorcery , black art/magic , magic , necromancy , wizardry , occultism , the occult , sortilege , thaumaturgy , wonder-working.
(From The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
Step 2: Databases
Academic Search Premier—can use this for most things
Historical Abstracts/America: History and Life—search these two databases together to pick up the Salem stuff of 1692
Wilson OmniFile—includes lots of important content, especially for the popular and scholarly literature between 1900 and 1950
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography—use this biographical source to search for individuals who in some way were connected to witchcraft, its study, practice, or prosecution. Amazing source of info on British history
International Medieval Bibliography—main source for medieval history
JSTOR—will find plenty here
Gale Virtual Reference Library–for encyclopedia articles, New Catholic Encyclopedia might be interesting, also Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia of European Social History, Europe: 1450-1789, Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
Oxford Reference Online—all kinds of good stuff here
Diamond: Library Catalog—find books at Temple
WorldCat—find books outside of Temple
Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO)—most of the books printed in Britain during the eighteenth century, all online, hard to believe something like this exists
Project Muse
Like most things regarding research, there’s a ton of other stuff, but the above sources would at least get you started
—Fred Rowland
Periodicals Index Online (PIO), Periodicals Archive Online (PAO), and British Periodicals Online are now available at the Temple University Libraries from theAll Databases list. These are superb additions for arts, humanities, and social science students and researchers. Coming from Proquest, the three databases are all related. Periodicals Index Online (formerly known as Periodicals Contents Index, or PCI) is the primary database because in addition to its own content it indexes and provides links to Periodicals Archive Online (formerly known as PCI Full Text) and British Periodicals Online.
Periodicals Index Online is a growing database that currently provides access to over 16 million articles from 5000 journals in over 40 languages going back as far as 1665. Every journal or magazine indexed by PIO starts from volume 1 issue 1 so there are no gaps in coverage. The PIO interface is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. When you search PIO, you are also searching PAO and the British Periodicals Index. PIO also provides links toProject Muse and JSTOR journals.
Periodicals Archive Online provides full-text access to 450 journals and magazines from 1665 to 1995 as well as 160 from British Periodicals Online. In all, PAO provides over 1.8 million full-text articles plus the full-text content from British Periodicals Online. As with PIO, there are links to Project MUSE and JSTOR journals.
British Periodicals Online can be searched separately. It comes in two modules. Module I is currently available and module II will add an additional 300 journals and magazines in the latter half of 2007. Here is a description of it from the website:
“British Periodicals traces the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the seventeenth century through to the Victorian ‘age of periodicals’ and beyond. On completion this unique digital archive will consist of almost 500 periodical runs published from the 1680s to the 1930s, comprising six million keyword-searchable pages and forming an unrivalled record of more than two centuries of British history and culture.”
Here are a few sample articles to pique your interest:
ATROCITIES OF BONAPARTE, IN 1797, Anti-Gallican: or Standard of British loyalty, religion and liberty , 1:12 (1804:Dec.) p.457
A Conjecture concerning the Peopling of AMERICA, Arminian Magazine consisting of extracts and original treatises on universal redemption, 13 (1790:Nov.) p.599
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON THE USE OF OIL AT SEA, Chambers’s journal of popular literature, science and arts, 934 (1881:Nov.) p.752
DANIEL DERONDA, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 52 (1875:Dec.-1876:May) p.425
Germany and Austria, Current History (New York), 22:4 (1925:July) p.653
Israel’s Place in America Hispana, Contemporary Jewish Record, 6:1 (1943:Feb.) p.5
If you do any research in the humanities and social sciences, you should get to know these databases very well. For students, they will help to save time and get better grades. For faculty and researchers, they will broaden the scope of your research and reduce searching time.
—Fred Rowland
The Temple University Libraries now offers electronic access to 80 Blackwell companions, guides, and dictionaries in the subject areas of philosophy (59 volumes) and religion (21 volumes), as part of Blackwell Reference Online. For a complete list of the philosophy and religion titles go here. These works offer great topic overviews and nicely complement the recently acquired Cambridge Companions. While Cambridge Companions predominantly focus on individual philosophers and theologians, Blackwell companions and guides focus on subject areas, i.e. epistemology, logic, religious ethics, political theology, etc.
Most of the titles in this collection are heavily used in print at Temple. Like the Cambridge Companions they are superb overviews written by prominent scholars, essential for faculty in unfamiliar disciplines, graduate students studying for classes and preliminary exams, and undergraduates researching papers. The searchable bibliographies take users right to the heart of current scholarship in a topic area. Like the Cambridge Companions, this electronic content will serve as excellent course material, most likely substituting in many instances for print texts.
There is quite a bit of overlap between Blackwell Reference Online and our print collection, but the print and the electronic versions of these works will likely be used in different ways. While the print versions are great for the focused study of individual topics, Blackwell Reference Online will allow users to search broadly over all the philosophy and religion volumes, discovering associations and linkages not apparent from the separate print volumes.
You can search Blackwell Reference Online using either the simple or advanced search. The simple search, which searches the full-text, offers post-search limiting by Subject, Place, Period, People, and Key Topics. It’s pretty slick, much like the way Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy does it. In the Advanced Search you can search authors, chapter titles, bibliographies, and full-text, as well as limiting to a particular book or subject area. You can also browse individual works. All results are presented as chapter titles or dictionary entries and are printable in full.
Another great source from the Temple University Libraries. Don’t wait. Start searching now!
I’ve always thought the idea of pilgrimage fascinating, as have many many others, since pilgrimage happens in a lot of religions and cultures. There’s even a two volume encyclopedia called Pilgrimage: from the Ganges to Graceland andmany books. If you do a search in GVRL, you can find articles on pilgrimage in Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, spanning most of the globe, even in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. And it’s been going on for a long time, back to the ancient world. In literature, think of Canterbury Tales andPilgrim’s Progress. Contemporary pilgrimage destinations that have ancient origins include Jerusalem, Mecca, Mount Shan (China), and the Ganges.
What I always associate with pilgrimage, sort of a romantic notion perhaps, is a spiritual / psychological transformation that takes place when you leave everything behind. It’s easier to change when your personal geography is changing every day. The physical and psychological sort of merge. It has quite an allure. Of course there’s always that reaching your destination and getting back part that can be problematic. (But I’m probably confusing a pilgrimage with an escape.) Here’s a nice overview article from the Encyclopedia of Religion on pilgrimage. Here’s an article on Sacred Places from the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Catholic Church defines pilgrimage as “generally a journey to a holy place undertaken from motives of devotion in order to obtain supernatural help or as an act of penance or thanksgiving.” I’ll bet that definition works for many religious traditions. But I don’t think pilgrimage needs to be thought of as strictly a religious phenomenon. Think of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus was set upon by fate and the gods on his homeward journey to Ithaca. Or think of Aeneas, fleeing from the carnage of Odysseus and the Greeks to found the city of Rome. Why did the ancients find journeys so fascinating? Or think of the pilgrims of England journeying from the “civilized” to the raw, innocent, and “primitive”. Richard Slotkin has written some interesting stuff about this. Or think of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, or Sheen in Apocalypse Now(or Brando, who could forget that?), or 2001: A Space Odyssey with Hal, Dave, and Frank.
Finally, I recently heard about two fascinating books by Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who has worked with a lot of Vietnam veterans. The first is calledAchilles in Vietnam, the second Odysseus in America. He uses the Iliad and the Odyssey to explain the journey of the soldier, first in the horror of combat and then on the long road home. It’s not easy.
There’s been lots of talk in the news the last few days on the Six Day War in 1967. Below are some sources you might use to find information. Just for the fun of it. Here are some quick overviews: Arab-Israel War (1967) ; Six Day War.
Databases–Articles
Historical Abstracts
Index Islamicus
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
AUL Index to Military Periodicals
Military and Government Collection
RAMBI: The Index On Articles in Jewish Studies look for articles on history and politics
JSTOR
Mixed Sources–Journals, books, policy briefs, case studies
Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) great source if you haven’t looked at this before!
Primary Sources
New York Times Full Text (1851-2003)
Wall Street Journal Full Text (1889-1989)
(London) Times Full Text (1785-1985)
Digital National Security Archive
Oral History Online not a lot on Six Day War but some interviews with participants (a few with Abba Eban)
Encyclopedias
Encyclopaedia of Islam Online I’d use this mainly to find biographies and bibliographies
Encyclopedia Judaica mainly to find biographies of participants and bibliographies
Books
Diamond (Temple’s Library Catalog)
Accessible Archives is an incredible database of American primary source materials from the 18th and 19th century. There are two main sections of content, the first is of 19th century histories of Pennsylvania counties—dozens of them, the second of newspapers. You might already be familiar with some of the newspapers.
Read this on the early Quakers in Delaware County from Ashmead’s History of Delaware County, 1884:
“THE only hamlet in Pennsylvania which had received a distinctive name that was known to persons in England at the time Penn acquired title to the territory was Upland, and that that had done so was doubtless due to the fact that Robert Wade had already made it his home. He being a Friend in communication with members of that religious sect in the mother-country, that circumstance directed the attention of the Quakers, “a society,” says Acrelius, “that the realm could well spare,” to the little cluster of rudely-fashioned dwellings on the banks of the Delaware. Hence Friends (whom, fortunately for the United States, could be spared from Europe to plant on this continent those seeds of political truths and religious liberty which, germinating, have grown into a nation on the maintenance of which the future continuance of constitutional representative government on the earth largely depends), or Quakers, as popularly known, desiring to flee from persecution and ignominy at home, gladly availed themselves of the liberal conditions which Penn offered to persons anxious to leave England, and particularly did the latter meet the approval of those people whose poverty had been largely produced by reason of the heavy fines imposed on them simply because of the religious sentiments they maintained.”
The newspapers included in Accessble Archives include the Pennsylvania Gazette (the NYT of the 18th century), seven African American newspapers of the 19th century, a bunch of small Delaware County newspapers of the 19th century, and finally a genealogical catalogue from 19th century Chester County. Below is an 1854 advertisement for different sorts of buggies, you know, as in horse and buggy.
March 10, 1854
DELAWARE COUNTY REPUBLICAN
“Advertisement
READY MADE CARRIAGES. – The subscribers have now on hand at
their Coachmaking establishment at Media, an assortment of
ready made vehicles, comprising one Germantown Wagon, a Jenny
Lind, three trotting Buggies, and one three post Boat Wagon,
which they offer for sale on reasonable terms. Also, several
second hand wagons of different kinds for sale. The
subscribers are constantly making to order, and have for sale
all kinds of vehicles now in use. Having none but good workmen
in their employ, they are able to turn out their work in the
best manner, and on terms as reasonable as any other
establishment in the county. Both the undersigned are
practical mechanics, and persons who purchase their work may
depend on its being as represented. Jobbing of all kinds, and
repairing done at short notice. DERRICK & FRYER.”
I am pleased to announce a major acquisition on microfilm, the Lesbian Herstory Archives Subject Files. This is a huge collection of 150 reels of microfilm. An additional reel provides a guide to the collection. The Lesbian Herstory Archives started in 1974 at a time when gay men and lesbian women began actively and vocally and sometimes militantly organizing to demand and defend their right to an equal place in American society. A newsletter of the Archives in 1975 explained:
“The Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather and preserve records of lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives. The process of gathering this material will also serve to uncover and collect our herstory denied to us previously by patriarchal historians in the interests of the culture which they serve…”
The intention from the start was to represent the lives of all lesbians which meant that the Archives itself would have to be very diverse and open to both mainstream and specialized publications as well ephemera. In 2004 the “Archives housed 20,000 volumes, 12,000 photographs, 400 special collections, 2000 periodical titles, 3000 organizational and subject files, thousands of feet of film and video footage, art and artifacts, musical records and tapes, posters and t-shirts, buttons, and personal memorabilia…”
The Subject Files of the Archives are a subset of the complete Archives. The selection process for the Subject Files is based on “relevancy, rarity, and research need”. Items need to be relevant to lesbian history and life in America, rare enough that they are not likely to be easily found elsewhere, and fill a genuine research need of writers and scholars. Since this collection represents a slice of American life during the late 20th and early 21st centuries any number of departments and programs will benefit from it.
If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the microform readers in Paley Library, let me know and I can help you get set up. Often people need a gentle push when working with microfilm.
Please let me know if you have any questions.