Welcome from your Course Librarian

This resource guide has been designed for students in HIST E-597,  a Fall 2022 Extension School class taught by Stephen Shoemaker.

The resources and strategies described on this page are specifically targeted: they represent our first best guesses at where you might find easy and more-or-less-comprehensive access to both the scholarly conversations and primary documents upon which your term project will be built.

Remember that good research is often about following up on hunches, testing out a hypothesis and then seeing where else (or to what else) it leads. You may need to try several search combinations before you strike gold. 

Let me know if questions arise at any point in your project. We'll triage by email or set up a time to meet on Zoom for a personal consultation.  

Enjoy your work! 

Sue Gilroy, Research Librarian, Lamont and Widener Libraries

HOLLIS Refresher for Capstone Projects

USING HOLLIS WELL: THREE CONSIDERATIONS

 

1.  Understand what HOLLIS is.

HOLLIS combines the extensive contents of our library catalog, the record every item owned by every Harvard Library with those of another, large and multidisciplinary database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles. 

The system default is to search both of these large databases, but you can make different choices (excluding one or the other) before or after you execute a search. 

 

2. Know how to work HOLLIS.

Creating search strings with some of the techniques below can help you get better results up front. 

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 3.  Take Control of Your Search Results.

While the broad and panoramic approach to searching HOLLIS can be mind-opening, you can sometimes find yourself overwhelmed by either the numbers or types of results your search returns.

When that happens, try one of these easy tricks:

  • Limit your Everything search results set just to the items listed in the LIBRARY CATALOG.

Your numbers will immediately get smaller. Keep in mind, though, that the results will be heavily weighted toward book-length studies.

  • Limit your Everything search results set to items that are identified as PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES.

You'll eliminate newspaper and magazine materials as well as books, of course, but you'll also raise the visibility of scholarly journal articles in what displays. 

  • Think about limiting your results to publications from the last 5, 10, 15, or 20 years.

By doing so you'll get a snapshot of the most recent research trends and scholarly approaches in a field (or around a particular issue).

 

Scan and Deliver

When an article you need is available in a print journal at Harvard but not online, you can ask us to make a PDF for you through a service called Scan and Deliver.

We'll send you an email when it's ready for downloading, typically between 1 and 4 days after you place the request. Scan and Deliver is a free service to Harvard affiliates.

Scan and Deliver is also an option if you want up to two chapters of any Harvard-owned book digitized for your use.  

NOTE: Initiate Scan and Deliver requests through HOLLIS.

 

 

When you're far from Cambridge, identifying books in print and on shelves in Harvard's library buildings can seem like a futile exercise. You can, however, often get your hands on items your find in HOLLIS even if you live many miles away from the Yard.

SOME OPTIONS TO CONSIDER

WorldCat: this is a database of library catalogs and useful for identifying college, university, and other library collections that are in your vicinity.  Search for the title; WorldCat will attempt to geolocate, but you can also enter your ZIPCODE to identify your options.

With WorldCat, you're going beyond the BorrowDirect consortium and beyond our reciprocal lending agreements.  However, as long as any of the area libraries allow you in (often a phone call or a scan of the website will clarify policy), you'll be in luck!

Check the catalog of the large PUBLIC LIBRARY in your area.  Depending on the region, the size of the library, its mission, and its funding, a local public library may have a significant research component to its collection (The Boston Public Library at Copley Square is a prime example). 

Ask your local library about an INTERLIBRARY LOAN.  Libraries routinely borrow from each other on behalf of their patrons; if you have a library card, you should be able to request it (or have a librarian do so).  ILL can take a bit of time, however. You might wait a week or a bit more before the item arrives. Some places charge a small fee for the service. 

Borrow Direct Plus: currently enrolled Extension School students who live near a member of this library consortium can obtain a card that allows access to the collections and privileges similar to those at Harvard libraries.  

Participating members: Brown U, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, U of Chicago, U Penn, Yale

If you live close by the college or university from which you graduated, ask about ALUMNI PRIVILEGES there

 

While You're Searching

  • Chat with a librarian.  Access via the right-side blue button on library pages.  Hours vary on Fridays and weekends, but Mondays-Thursdays, someone is available 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

 

For More Complicated Questions about HOLLIS (or your research needs)

  • Use our Ask a Librarian page to submit a question by emial OR set up an appointment with a research librarian.  Normal turnaround time is 24 hours (or less). 

 

Ways to Help Yourself 

Books, Articles, and Primary Sources Beyond HOLLIS

 

Oxford Bibliographies Online

OBOs combine the best features of the annotated bibliography with an authoritative subject encyclopedia. They aim to help you identify some of the most important and influential scholarship on a broad social, political, cultural or interdisciplinary disciplinary topic. They're regularly updated to remain current. 

Often the issue in information-seeking isn't scarcity of material but overabundance. OBO entries can help you solve the problem of knowing what or who to read or which voices in the conversation you should give some fuller attention to.

Examples of entries that might be appropriate to course themes include:  African American Religions; The Great Awakening; Jonathan Edwards (and more!)

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PRO TIPS

  • Ignore the sign-in prompt to the left of the screen (unless you want to set up a personal account with OBO to store entries you find there).  Even without signing in, your Harvard key "unlocks" full access to contents of this database.
  • Titles of the books, articles, journals and other materials referenced in an OBO entry should be entered into HOLLIS to determine their availability at Harvard. 

 

Databases are like lenses: they change what you see and how you see it -- and they offer you easy and efficient ways to bring your questions into sharper focus. Every academic discipline has at least one subject database that's considered the disciplinary gold standard -- a reliable, (relatively) comprehensive, and accurate record of the books that scholars are publishing, and the ideas they're debating and discussing in important and influential journals.  For your Proseminar, we recommend:

MULTIDISCIPLINARY COVERAGE

An excellent next step after you've sampled what's available in HOLLIS.

Like HOLLIS, it's also  multidisciplinary in its coverage and it also provides you with a range of article types (some scholarly, some not). But while still broad, it's a smaller universe than HOLLIS. 

Depending  on your topic, in fact, searching in ASP may even be a more efficient route to quality information, simply because it will deliver a more manageable result set.

This databases overs core  scholarly journals in 75 fields; historical fields are represented well here. Some of its content is open access and easily discoverable on the web; some is made available only because of your Harvard affiliation and the library's subscription to JSTOR; the most recent issues of journals may not even appear in a JSTOR search, however, if they are behind the database's 1-5 year "moving wall." 

Google Scholar

It searches full-text which can be an advantage when you've got a very narrow topic or are seeking a "nugget" that traditional database searching  can't surface easily. 

Google Scholar incorporates more types of information -- not just books and journal contents--and depending on your need, comfort level, and perspective, that eclecticism can be an advantage.  GS is perfectly acceptable for most general forays into scholarship; its algorithms are excellent and do return relevant results.  GS can also be a good way to follow citation trails.

Learn how to get around the Google Scholar paywalls by changing your computer settings here: https://library.harvard.edu/services-tools/google-scholar

 

KEY SUBJECT SPECIFIC DATABASES
America: History and Life

The premier database for scholarly historical study of the the U.S. and Canada, pre-history to the present.  

Sociology Database (ProQuest)

 

 

CURRENT AND HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS

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POPULAR MAGAZINES and PERIODICALS

 

LAW AND LEGISLATION

 

DIGITIZED PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTIONS FOR STUDENT PROJECTS

 

SOME ADDITIONAL DATABASES FOR PRIMARY SOURCES 

 

LIBRARY GUIDE and LIBRARY EXPERTS

  • Digital Primary Sources Online is an extensive list, maintained by librarians Fred Burchsted and Anna Assogba.  You may find good leads there, with a little digging.

Anna and Fred are the Library's History liaisons.  You can contact them directly with questions or for a follow-up consult:

Tips for Finding Full-Text of Articles

1. Google Scholar Settings

One simple change can turn Google Scholar into what's effectively a Harvard database -- with links to the full-text of articles that the library can provide. Here's what to do: 

  • Look to the left of the GS screen and click on the "hamburger" (); then click on  . 
  • Look for "Library Links."  Then type Harvard University into the search box and save your choice.  As long as you allow cookies, the settings will keep.  
2. The Harvard Library Bookmark

A bookmark you set-up save to your toolbar, and then click on when you come across an article citation and want to determine if Harvard gives you access. you can create.

Directions for creating it are here: https://library.harvard.edu/services-tools/check-harvard-library-bookmark

 3. Lean Library

 A browser plugin that (nearly always) identifies digital availability of items at Harvard and runs automatically as you search books and articles. 

See it as an alternative to the Bookmark (above) Some users find Lean Library's pop-ups intrusive and distracting, however, despite its convenience.