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US Studies Resources at Oxford blog
This blog is designed to help students and researchers using the US Studies collections held at the Vere Harmsworth Library, as well as to highlight the variety of resources that are available both in Oxford and more widely. Posts cover tips on using specific resources as well as guidance on resources available for specific subject areas.
Visit the blog directly at http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/us-studies
Free web resources: VHL's latest bookmarks
There are a huge (and growing) number of freely available online resources for US History. The VHL is saving links to many of these as we come across them on our Diigo page.
Visit https://www.diigo.com/user/vhllib for more.
Purpose of this guide
This guide is intended for students and researchers studying American history at the University of Oxford, although students of American politics and culture may find it useful.
Use this guide to find out about key resources for American history, including bibliographies, databases of primary sources and other relevant online collections.
How to use the guide
This guide aims to give an overview of some of the most important and useful finding aids and collections.
Click on any of the tabs to find relevant resources:
The Vere Harmsworth Library is Oxford's research library for US History and the History Faculty Library holds the teaching collections. Check their websites for information on location, opening hours, services and collections.
Getting started
Finding books and journals
Use SOLO to search for books, journals and databases held in Oxford libraries (Bodleian, faculty libraries and college libraries).
Use author and/or title searches to find books:
author = carwardine + title = lincoln.
Use subject searches if you don't know the title or author:
subject = United States - History - Civil War, 1861-1865
Key journals via OU eJournals
- American Historical Review
- Early American Studies
- Journal of American History
- Journal of American Studies
- Journal of the Early Republic
- Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
- Massachusetts Historical Review
- William & Mary Quarterly
Finding journal articles
Don't search for journal articles in SOLO Oxford Collections! If you know the journal it was published in, search by journal title. If you don't know where an article has been published in, the best way to locate journal articles by a particular author or on a particular subject, is to use a bibliographical database.
- America: History & Life (c. 1450-current)
- Bibliography of British & Irish History (useful for colonial American history)
Many journal articles may be found in SOLO Articles & More, but this is not comprehensive. If you cannot find the article you are looking for in Articles & More, search for the journal title in Oxford Collections. Detailed guidance on finding journals and journal articles in SOLO may be found in the SOLO libguide.
Finding dissertations & theses
- Oxford theses: Use SOLO in the first instance. See also Theses website for more information.
- British & Irish theses: Use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses UK & Ireland and check out EThos, the British Library's service for downloading of theses from UK universities.
- US theses: Use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses to search access full text of most theses published since 1997 and many older works too. NB, if full text is not available, it can be very difficult to get hold of US theses from the UK.