The content for this guide will be created by students enrolled in Dr. Pablo Sierra's HIS 154 course (Spring 2020). In the meantime, this page provides recommendations on where to search for primary sources and supporting research for HIS 154-related projects including both article databases and e-book collections. All of the resources included on this guide are accessible off-campus.
If you have any questions as you begin your research, please feel free to reach out to Lara Nicosia...she is happy to help! Currently Lara is working remotely; you can reach her using the following methods:
For historical research, the phrase "primary sources" refers to items that were created at the time an event occurred usually by direct observers. Primary sources are not limited to traditional text-based documents such as newspaper articles and journal entries; photographs, posters, audio recordings, video clips, and more can all serve as primary sources so long they are used as evidence of the time they were created. It's not about the source type...it's about how the source is used for your research.
One challenge for this class is that many of the primary sources you might discover will not be in English. While tools such as Google Translate can be helpful when trying to read these materials, it can be hard to construct a meaningful search when you are not familiar with the language. As a result, you may need to get creative with your search, consider some American/European-based resources, and collaborate with classmates familiar with Spanish or Portuguese.
The term "soccer" is not used in most places around the world. While you will want to include soccer as a search term to capture items cataloged in the United States, you should also search for futebol (Portuguese), fútbol (Spanish), and football (English).
Sources in English, Spanish, and Portuguese
Sources in English
Sources in Portuguese
Sources in Spanish
Secondary sources and other supporting research materials often provide an analysis of historical figures or events and build context around the primary sources you are using for your research. There are many kinds of secondary sources, but some of the most common for academic research are scholarly books and e-books and peer-reviewed journal articles.
River Campus Libraries provides access to over one million e-books covering a large variety of disciplines and publishers. Because our e-books are available through different databases and websites, the easiest way to find an e-book in UR’s collection is to start on the library's homepage and choose "Library Catalog" from the dropdown box.
To narrow your search to e-books, choose the Click to access resource and Book/eBook filters from the options on the left-hand side of your results (Show Me)...or use the search box below.
The library also has several collections of e-books that are worth searching in for your topic. While books in these collections are pulled into all of our catalog searches, relevant titles can sometimes get buried within thousands of results. Try searching these databases directly for e-books on your topic:
Summon is a great place to start looking for articles on most topics. Serving as the main search box on the library's homepage, Summon searches across library resources bringing everything together in one place. When searching Summon be sure to limit your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources.
While Summon is a great place to start, the tool searches so many places that relevant results may wind up buried. Try directly searching the databases listed below to find relevant sources you might miss when using large-scale multidisciplinary tools such as Summon or Google Scholar:
When selecting audiovisual materials to use on your guide's page, you will want to pay attention to copyright restrictions. While you can link to copyrighted content (ideally pointing directly to the source of the material such as the creator's website), items that you embed on the guide need to be in the public domain or include a Creative Commons license. If you have questions about the copyright status of a particular image, video, or audio file, please feel free to contact Lara.
