German Studies 100

Background Information	Books	Journal Articles	Book Reviews
Evaluating Information	Web Sites	Citing Tools	Need Help?

 

For any research project, you may find the LITS guide to Getting Started on Research to be a useful summary of the research process.  It includes advice on choosing your research tools and search tips for getting the most out of them.

Reference works are a good place to begin your research. They can provide quick background information, help you to generate research topic ideas, and help you to develop a list of keywords to use when you begin searching the library catalog, article indexes and databases. The following is a selective list of works that (unless otherwise noted as being in the stacks or online) may be found in Mount Holyoke's reference collection: 

Historical background

• Encyclopedia Britannica Online
• The Oxford companion to World War II
  MH Reference D740 .O94 1995
• The Holocaust encyclopedia
  MH Reference D804.25 .H66 2001
• Encyclopedia of contemporary German culture
  MH Reference DD290.26 .E53 1999
• Modern Germany : an encyclopedia of history, people, and culture, 1871-1990
  MH Reference DD14 .M64 1998
• The encyclopedia of the Third Reich
  MH Reference DD256.5 .G76313 1991
• Encyclopedia of contemporary Japanese culture
  MH Reference DS822.5 .E516 2002
• Modern Japan : an encyclopedia of history, culture, and nationalism
  MH Reference DS805 .M63 1998
• The Cambridge encyclopedia of Japan
  MH Stacks Folio DS805 .C36 1993

Maps

• Atlas of the Second World War
  MH Reference G1038 .Y6 1974
• The chronological atlas of World War Two
  MH Reference D743.5 .M47 1989
• The Palgrave concise historical atlas of the Second World War
• War maps : World War II, from September 1939, to August 1945, air, sea and land, battle by battle
  MH Reference G1038 .G6

Literature and film

• Japanese fiction writers since World War II
  MH Reference PL747.8 .J36 1997
• Contemporary German fiction writers. First series
  MH Reference PT772 .C59 1988
• Contemporary German fiction writers. Second series
  MH Reference PT772 .C593 1988
• Holocaust literature : an encyclopedia of writers and their work
  MH Reference PN56.H55 H66 2003
• West German cinema since 1945 : a reference handbook
  MH Reference PN1993.5.G3 H435 1987
• International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
  MH Reference PN 1997.8 I58 1990
• The film encyclopedia
  MH Reference PN1993.45 .K34 2001

The Five College Online Library Catalog is the main tool to use for finding books (as well as multimedia) on your topic. You can search just Mount Holyoke's holdings or the holdings for all Five College libraries. When you find an item that's in Mount Holyoke's collection, note the location and call number then use the Getting Around in LITS guide to determine where it is located in the building. When you find an item that's in one of the other Five College libraries, use the Request Item feature to request that the book be delivered to you. For a series of tutorials explaining how to use the catalog, see the Five College Catalog Overview web page.

If you are unable to find a title in the Five College Catalog, try searching WorldCAT. WorldCAT is a database of records for materials held in libraries worldwide. Items located in WorldCat should be requested using the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan form. It is best to plan ahead when requesting materials outside of the Five College libraries. An item coming from a library within MA may take as little as a week to arrive, but materials from further afield may take much longer.

Which indexes and databases to use

The library catalog, while it will tell you which library has a journal title and for which years, doesn’t contain information about the individual articles within each journal issue. Article indexes and databases, on the other hand, do contain information at the article level and are the better tool for finding articles on your topic. Mt. Holyoke subscribes to many article indexes and databases. A full list of these can be found at E-Resources A to Z, but you may find it easier to use the library's Research Guides. The Research Guides break down, by academic discipline, the most appropriate databases for each subject. Some potentially useful Research Guides and databases for this class:

• German Studies
  • The Modern Language Association International Bibliography indexes over 4,400 journals and series in the fields of literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.
• Asian Studies
  • BAS Online/Bibliography of Asian Studies Books, periodical articles and book chapters on all subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide.
• History
  • Historical Abstracts indexes and provides abstracts for articles on the history of the world (other than the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present.
• Film Studies
  • Film and Television Literature Index With Full Text Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. The database will provide cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 300 publications (and selected coverage of 301), as well as full text for more than 90 journals.
• Psychology
  • PsycINFO This database is the MAJOR gateway to locate research published in the field of psychology, dating all the way back to the 1880's. PsycARTICLES, an ejournal collection that contains recent issues of journals published specifically by the APA, is also linked from citations found in PsycINFO.
• Sociology
  • International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)   Includes over two million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries.
  • Sociological Abstracts A primary access point to sociology journal articles; online indexing includes 1963 and forward. Earlier years, dating from 1953, are available in print: Sociological Abstracts - Williston Stacks, Level 3, HM 1 .S67 Folio
• Multidisciplinary databases
  • Academic Search Premiere Scholarly, multi-disciplinary database containing full text for nearly 4,650 serials, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed publications. Also offers indexing and abstracts for more than 8,200 journals. Disciplines covered include arts & literature, ethnic studies, and history.
  • JStor Full text of back issues of scholarly journals from all disciplines, some citation information for newer issues. If you use the Advanced search form, it's possible to limit your search to journals in specific disciplines. Disciplines include (among many others) African Studies, Asian Studies, History, and Language & Literature.

Once you've identified an article on your topic, the next step is to get a copy of the article. Some databases make this very easy because they contain not only a citation for each article but also a link to a full-text, electronic version of the article that may be printed from your computer screen. Other databases contain only citations so, once you've identified an article that you'd like to read and the journal in which it was published, you must check the Five-College Library Catalog to determine if the journal is available in print or electronically. Most of the databases have a built-in  Check SFX feature that links to the Five Colleges Catalog so you can easily determine a journal's availability. If a journal isn't available electronically or in print at Mt. Holyoke, you can request that a copy of the article be sent to you via Interlibrary Loan using the ILLiad web form. This usually takes within 5 days if the journal is at one of the other Five Colleges. However, getting copies of articles from journals outside of the Five Colleges can take longer so it's wise to plan ahead.

• Book Review Digest -- Provides review excerpts and book summaries for current English-language fiction and non-fiction books for all ages. Abstracting and indexing are included for more than 112,000 books.
• Proquest National Newspapers -- This full text database allows you to search 9 major US newspapers ( New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Dates available vary for each paper. Tip for searching only reviews: Click on the Advanced tab then on More Search Options. In the More Search Options section, find the Document type drop-down menu and select Review
• LexisNexis -- Full text database of major U.S. and international news sources. Tip for searching only reviews: Click on the News tab, and, in the Sources drop-down menu, choose Book, Movie, Music, Play, and Video Reviews.

Not all information resources are created equal! Be sure you think about what kind of information you are  using.  See Purdue University Libraries Evaluation page for a useful guide to evaluating books, periodical articles and web sites.

• Internet Movie Database (IMDB) This is a useful resource for quickly looking up a film's release date and director.
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Directory of free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals covering all subjects and languages.

• The MLA handbook for writers of research papers MH Reference LB2369 .G53 2003
• Research and Documentation Online citation format guides and examples for MLA, Chicago, APA, CSE
• RefWorks online research management tool that helps you generate citations and bibliographies for your papers. See the RefWorks Tutorial and Tip Sheets for Importing Records to help you get started.

Contact Mary Stettner, library liaison to the German Studies department, or other Reference Librarians (anyone on duty at the Reference Desk can help you get started!).