History: Ancient Civilizaions (Hanover)
Books and Library Catalogs
Print reference books are available on a book cart. Please use our library's scanner to copy the pages you wish to use (so that these limited resources can be shared with and used by everyone).
You may be able to find more books about a particular topic by searching catalogs in our library and other libraries:
Online Resources: Databases, Ebooks, Google Scholar
PowerSearch performs a comprehensive search of Gale databases.
Search, then click "Books" to find an overview article for your subject.
Seek out narrower articles (in academic journals, newspapers, or magazines) after getting an overview source.
This database has additional articles that are not captured in the Gale PowerSearch.
JSTOR Database
JSTOR offers digitized back issues of academic journals. This database is provided by the Boston Public Library (BPL).
If you have a BPL eCard or a physical BPL card, then:
Go to BPL's A-Z Online Resources, then click JSTOR.
Enter your BPL eCard number and PIN. (Or, if you have a physical BPL card, use that account info.)
If you DO NOT have a BPL eCard or a physical BPL card, then sign up for a BPL eCard. Check your email for the eCard number–and remember your PIN. Then follow the above directions.
After searching Google Scholar, look for the results that show a PDF document (as those are the freely-accessible articles).
Primary Sources
Asia for Educators (Columbia)
Internet Classics Archive (MIT, Daniel C. Stevenson)
Perseus Digital Library (Tufts University)
Search Tips
QUOTATION MARKS
Use quotations to find an exact phrase. For example:
"Middle Kingdom"
"Alexander the Great"
"Ramses II"
"Imperial Rome"
TRUNCATION (USING AN ASTERISK*)
Truncation finds different forms of the same word, in a single search. In truncation, a symbol is added to the end of a word root. Often, the symbol for truncation is an asterisk * . The asterisk tells the database to search for all forms of that word.
For example, typing censor* in a database finds these results:
censor
censors
censored
censoring
censorship
Why use truncation? If a word has various endings and those variants essentially refer to the same concept, then truncation can save time, as it offers more complete search results in a single search. (Some word roots do not work well with truncation, because the word roots diverge into different concepts–for example, minor* would find minor, minors, minority, minorities, etc. or wom* would find womb, wombat, women, woman, etc.)
NOTE: An asterisk does truncation in the Advanced Search field of most–though not all–databases. If using a truncation symbol such as an asterisk, you may need to use the word “and” between your keyword terms (to avoid an error message). Each database offers a "Help" section which may provide its own specific guidance about truncation.
ADVANCED SEARCHING AND SORTING RESULTS
Most databases provide links or a drop-down menu to sort by relevance or date.
Most databases have a link called Advanced or Advanced Search. Using Advanced Search, you can:
limit the date range
limit the document type
refine your keyword search
Citation
Use the citation style outlined in your assignment and cite sources as you find them.
CITATION GENERATORS
NoodleTools (also notecards, auto-generated Works Cited)
[NOTE: Databases provide you with citations, so you do not need to use a citation generator to cite database articles.]