This guide is designed to offer library resources in support of research
and 
library use for this course.
Key Online Tools
These online tools will be useful for all your research in Harvard Libraries:
Citation Linker: an online form for finding e-journal articles; using pieces of a bibliographic citation, this automatically links you to either the electronic full text of a journal article or to the HOLLIS record showing which Harvard libraries own it.
Cross Search: lets you search more than one database at a time in a variety of subject areas.
Harvard Libraries Portal: the web gateway to most of the electronic resources (journals, indexes, online databases) available through Harvard Libraries.
HOLLIS: the online catalog for most of the materials held by Harvard Libraries (books, journals, etc.).
Lib-X: a browser toolbar add-on that allows you to search the HOLLIS Catalog, E-Journal List, E- Resource List, Citation Linker, and Google Scholar quickly, with links to other search tools and library resources.
OASIS: allows users to search a SMALL PERCENTAGE of the finding aids for archival and manuscript materials found at Harvard University and Radcliffe Institute. There are over forty archival and manuscript repositories at Harvard/Radcliffe, all specializing in differing, though sometimes overlapping, subject areas.
HCL Web Site: find here information on the libraries and collections in the College Library, as well as online forms and services, including:Library Hours
Widener Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
How to get "On Order" or "Ordered-received" materials you find in HOLLIS
Getting Materials from HD (the Harvard Depository)
Making Library Purchase Recommendations
Research Guides for subjects and courses
General Reference Works
Cambridge Histories Online Religious Studies: provides full text of multi-volume histories of the Bible, Christianity, and Judaism.
Dissertations and Theses Full-Text: indexes dissertations and masters' theses from most North American graduate schools as well as some European universities. You can download the full text for most indexed dissertations from 1990-present. Index covers 1861-present.
Encyclopaedia Judaica: covers all aspects of Jewish history and culture in the Diaspora and in Israel from ancient times to the 20th century.
Encyclopedia of Religion: covers topics in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and other religions.
Google Books: search and browse books online. If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given Google permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy. Go into the "About this book" section to find references to the work from scholarly web pages and references, book reviews, and more.
Google Scholar: goes beyond plain Google — this is an index to the scholarly articles in Google, using Google's search system. AND... if you use this link the system recognizes you as a Harvard searcher... so you get full-text for free, rather than having to pay for it.
Oxford Reference Online: Religion and Philosophy: provides full text of basic reference texts such as the Oxford Companion to the Jewish Religion.
Finding Books
Search the HOLLIS Online Catalog to find books for your research. Here are some suggestions for how to start:
1. If you're looking for books on a topic, try a keyword search:
sephardic spain
(to get more results, use a ? at the end of a word; it's a wildcard & brings up more books)
sephard? spain
2. If you know the exact beginning of a book title, or the author's name, do a title or author search:
a. To find the book, The Jews of Moslem Spain,
do a "Title beginning with" search for: jews of moslem spain(omit initial articles -- the, an, a, le, etc. -- from title searches or you'll get zero results)
b. To find materials by Paul Szarmach, do an author search for: szarmach, paul
3. Subject Searching in HOLLIS:
There are many subject headings you can use in searching HOLLIS to find materials for your research in this class; Keyword searches will lead you to finding Subject Headings you can use for more focused searching in HOLLIS.
Here are some Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) that will let you do highly selective searches for topics of interest in this course: simply copy and paste one of these headings into the HOLLIS Search box and choose to do a Subject Beginning With... search. To find more LCSH for the subject you are researching, do a keyword search in HOLLIS, pull up the record for an interesting title, then click on the Subject links displayed at the end of the record (those Subject links are LCSH):
Arabs -- Spain -- History |
Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204 Marranos -- History Marranos -- Spain Muslims -- Spain -- History Sephardim -- History Sephardim -- History -- 15th century Sephardim -- History -- 16th century Sephardim -- Spain -- History Spain -- Civilization -- 711-1516 Spain -- Civilization -- Islamic influences Spain -- Civilization -- Jewish influences Spain -- Ethnic relations Spain -- History -- 711-1516 Spain -- Politics and government -- To 1479 Toleration -- Spain -- History Zohar |
To do a more powerful search use Expanded Search.
Expanded Search lets you limit your search by language, by date, and by library.
Finding Journal Articles
This is a list of online journal indexes and databases likely to be useful for this class. All of these are seachable by topic, name, and region, and all will lead you to articles about the subject for which you search.
If you find a citation for an article that you want to read but the full text isn't available in the database when you click the
button, find the article in print or online by following the instructions at Finding Online Articles from a Citation, below.
Academic Search Premier: a database that offers information about nearly every subject, and includes full-text for many articles from 1990 to the present.
ATLA Religion Database: indexes journal articles, essays, and book reviews covering all religions and all theological points of view.
Historical Abstracts: a reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present.
Index Islamicus: an online bibliography of over 2,000 publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, including writing and languages. [Printed volumes for 1665 to 1905 are in the Widener Reading Room: RR 4881.10.9.]
Index to Jewish Periodicals: an index on Jewish history, activity and thought, this provides a guide to English-language articles, book reviews, and feature stories in over 160 journals devoted to Jewish affairs.
International Medieval Bibliography: is a bibliography of journal articles, essay collections and conference proceedings in Classics, History and Archaeology, Theology and Philosophy, and Arabic and Islamic Studies, among others. Dates covered range from 400 to 1500 A.D., and geographic coverage includes Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
JSTOR: full-image online access to selected scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
MasterFILE Premier: provides full text for approximately 2,000 periodicals covering a broad range of disciplines.
Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies: an index to research, policy, and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.
MLA International Bibliography: bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore, and includes coverage from 1963 to the present.
New Testament Abstracts: a guide to literature about the New Testament and its historical milieu.
Old Testament Abstracts: features indexing and abstracts (all abstracts are in English, regardless of the language of the original work) for content from more than 450 journals. Topics include antiquities, archaeology, biblical theology, and philology.
Philosopher's Index: the major indexing source for scholarly research in philosophy.
Project Muse: online access to the full text of more than 200 scholarly journals in the humanities.
RAMBI; the Index of Articles on Jewish Studies: a selective bibliography of articles in the various fields of Jewish studies and in the study of Eretz Israel.
Finding Online Articles from a Citation
You can use Citation Linker to find the full-text of an article online, or to get the call number for a printed journal from HOLLIS. For example, if you have this article citation and want to get hold of the article itself...
“Futures of al-Andalus,” by Gil Anidjar, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies; Nov. 2006, Vol. 7, Issue 3, pages 225-239.
...you first need to locate the journal (Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies), then get the particular article ("Futures of al-Andalus,") in Volume 7, Issue 3, November 2006, beginning on page 225 in that journal.
Here's how you find it:
- Go to the Citation
Linker and plug in as much information as you can about the journal
and / or article (in the case above, you'd enter the date (November 2006), title of the journal (Journal of
Spanish Cultural Studies), the volume number (7), issue number (3), and start page (225), then click the button
in the Citation Linker window.
- If Harvard owns the journal in electronic format, clicking the button
takes you to a message telling you we have it online, along with a link that takes you to the article.
- If you get only the link message, “Check holdings in HOLLIS Catalog,” click that link to find out which Harvard libraries own the journal in print. Click the Holdings link in the library’s location line to see the specific years and volumes owned by that library, and to get the call number for the journal.
Getting a Print Article
If you need to find printed journal articles, much of what you'll be looking for will be in Widener. Widener Library can be easy to use if you know this information:
- Widener uses 2 different classification systems to organize books
and journals: the Library of Congress system, and the Old Widener
system (because Widener pre-dates the Library of Congress). The rule
of thumb is: if you see WID-LC at the beginning of
the call number, that’s a Library of Congress classification number
and you consult the top portion of the Widener Call Number Locations
Chart. If there’s no WID-LC at the beginning of the
call number, look at the lower, Old Widener System part of the chart.
Here’s the Widener Call Number Locations Chart
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/widener/docs/wid_loc_chart.pdf (.pdf, 49k)
The Locations Chart gives you the Stack level and sector (East or West); this diagram illustrates the layout of the Stacks
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/widener/finding_materials.html#stacks_diagram
- Journals are kept in 2 main places in Widener: Current Issues of journals are kept in the Periodicals Reading Room Stacks on the 1st floor (opposite the Circulation Desk area), while older issues are bound into volumes (that look remarkably like large books) and shelved right along with the books in the stacks, in call number order. What’s a current issue? It can be the last month, the last year, or the last 2 year’s worth of a journal – find out exactly where the issue you’re looking for is by clicking the Holdings link in a HOLLIS record.
There are photocopiers in the Circulation Desk room, the Current Periodicals Reading Room, and throughout the stacks in Widener. If you use Crimson Cash copying is cheaper than using cash. There is a Crimson Cash "value transfer station" (the way to add $$$ to your Crimson Cash card/ID) next to the Information Desk in the Circulation Desk room on the first floor.
For similar information about the other libraries at Harvard, please consult the List of Harvard Libraries.
Bibliographic Tools
- Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper: From Duke University Libraries, this site tells you how to cite most formats you're likely to use in your research (articles, books, e-journals, web sites, primary sources, online newspapers, etc.).
- Chicago Manual of Style: searchable full-text online version of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.
- How to Cite Electronic Sources: From the Library of Congress, guidelines on how to construct citations for electronic sources.
- Using RefWorks, EndNote, and Other Citation Tools: a guide created by the Citation Tools Working Group.
Not Finding What You Need? E-mail me.
If you don't find the research material you need by using the resources available here, please let me know — I can help you find more.
Cheryl LaGuardia, Research Librarian and liaison to the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department, Widener Library, 617-496-4226.