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American Studies

Finding Indiana Books and Articles

Books

IUCAT

Try a keyword search for legends and Indiana to locate collective works regarding Indiana legends.

Articles

Academic Search Premier (via  EBSCOhost)
"Academic Search Elite offers full text for more than 2,000 serials, including more than 1,500 peer-reviewed titles. This multi-disciplinary database covers virtually every area of academic study. More than 100 journals have PDF images back to 1985. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost." (from website)

America: History and Life: Prehistory to the Present (via EBSCO)
This resource includes abstracts to articles, books, and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present.

Indiana Magazine of History, a full text, keyword searchable archive of articles about Indiana history.

Master File Premier  (via EBSCO )
"Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 1,700 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1975. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Premier also includes nearly 500 full text reference books, 84,774 biographies, 100,554 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 202,164 photos, maps and flags. This database is updated daily via EBSCOhost." (from website)

Traces, a publication of the Indiana Historical Society about Indiana and Midwestern history.  An index from 1989-2005 is available.  IUPUI University Library has the print of Traces.  Once you know the article you'd like go to call # F521 .T73 on the 3rd floor of the library for past issues or to Current Periodicals on the 2nd floor of the library for most recent issues.

Finding Primary Sources about Indiana Topics

Visit a Local Archive

The centrally located Indiana Historical Society and Indiana State Library have loads of original documents, photos, maps, etc. related to Indiana history and legends.  Their catalogs are available at the links above but I also highly recommend speaking with a librarian at these organizations.  They know their collections very well and often can immediately let you know if the topic you are researching is represented in their archives.

Online Newspapers

Indianapolis Recorder

What began as a two-page church bulletin by co-founders George Pheldon Stewart and William H. Porter, the Indianapolis Recorder is now one of the top African-American publications in the nation. Established in 1897, the Indianapolis Recorder focused on local people and events in Indianapolis but also reported national events. IUPUI University is pleased to present the Indianapolis Recorder Digital Collection. Providing access to the 1899-2005 run of the Indianapolis Recorder will have an impact on researchers from all walks of life. Whether you are a family historian, an academic researcher or part of the media, this collection will help you search for and access historically important stories of African-Americans individuals, organizations, and events in Indianapolis, Indiana in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Indianapolis News, 1869-1897

The Indianapolis News began publication on December 7th 1869. For 130 years it was the oldest Indianapolis newspaper and held the largest circulation in the State of Indiana. The Indianapolis News ended circulation on October 1, 1999. As an evening paper, the Indianapolis News saw a decline that matched a growth in circulation for the Indianapolis Star, the morning newspaper.

Indiana Newspapers in the Library of Congress' Chronicling America

The Library of Congress has been supporting digitization of local newspapers across the contry.  Indiana has a broad geographic epresentation of Indiana newspapers within the collection.

Online Images

Indiana Memory

Cutlrual heritage organizations across the state have created digital colletions of Indiana history.  Many of these organizations can be centrally searched through the Indiana Memory portal.

American Memory

The Library of Congress has created digital collections chronicling America's history.  Some Indiana content is included.

Other Freely Availble Digital Collections via the Open Web

Some of the collections of primary resources listed above are freely available resources, digitized and placed online for scholarly use by cultural institutions such as libraries, museums, and historical societies.  Many other collections of this nature exist and can be located through a simple Google search.  Search strategies for locating possible collections: 1) Try a simple keyword search (Ex. Indianapolis Sanborn maps) 2) Try searching for the museums and libraries geographically or topically related to your research project. (Ex. Indiana Historical Society)

A word of caution, If you are searching the open web for primary sources make sure you carefully evaluate the source and site.  Don’t just assume the digitized document is a quality resource.  Follow this link to a guide for determining quality and for proper citation of such sources http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA/