Researching Indians’ History

Introduction to Library Resources

Three Types of Sources

• Primary: – sources written or created at the time of

the event and by eyewitnesses

• Secondary Sources: – analysis or interpretation written later

• Tertiary:– reference-type works and finding guides

to primary and secondary sources

Primary sources

Written Visual Oral

Secondary sources

Books Journal Articles

Dissertation

s

Tertiary sourcesReference

Works

Databases

Finding Guides

Search steps

• Topic and search terms – Topical– Geographical People – Organization – Chronological

• Types of information – Government reports– Newspaper accounts– First person accounts– Secondary sources– Images

• Encyclopedias can help you come up with a list of search terms

• The type of info needed determines which database to use

Database searching

• Boolean operators • AND - narrows a search, links different

concepts• OR - broadens a search, links related

concepts/synonyms• ( ) – parentheses when combining ANDs and

ORs

• Truncation/wildcard• Many databases allow you to use a special

symbol to search for variations of word endings. The asterisk * is used by many databases but some use ?, #, !