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Library Research Guide for HIST 12X: The AIDS Epidemic

Finding Primary Sources

Sources can be found numerous classes of historical record.  This page lists a variety of such classes and offers links to resources for exploring them.

Searching in HOLLIS

To find books, periodicals, manuscripts, videos, etc., on a topic in HOLLIS, put in likely keywords and choose Library Catalog.  Look at pertinent records and find the terms under Subject. For example, searching AIDS Africa yields

When bodies remember : experiences and politics of AIDS in South Africa, by Didier Fassin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 365 p.
Subjects
AIDS (Disease) -- Government policy -- South Africa
AIDS (Disease) -- Political aspects -- South Africa
AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects -- South Africa
Med. subject
Politics
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - ethnology
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
Health Policy
HIV Infections
Anthropology, Cultural
South Africa
HOLLIS Record

Note that there are two sets of Subject terms for medicine.

  • Library of Congress labeled: Subject
  • National Library of Medicine (called MeSH) labeled Med. subject

Under Refine my results: Subject on the right of the results list there are more main terms (Public health, HIV-positive persons, Children of AIDS patients) to try. NOTE: If you hit one of the terms in this Subject list, HOLLIS will find records with the term, say  HIV-positive persons, only on records in the set originally formed by searching AIDS Africa.

Redo your search using the terms that HOLLIS uses.    Also, go to Starts with.../Browse (top black band) and put in AIDS Disease adjusting to Browse by Subject.  This is very useful in breaking down a large subject and in giving you more subdivisions (the words after the --), which can be applied to other Subject terms, to search.  Whenever you have a reference to a useful book, look it up in HOLLIS and see what the Subject terms are.

Any pertinent book published during your era may be a primary source, but certain kinds of primary sources, including originally unpublished sources such as letters and diaries published later, have particular terms attached to their Subject terms in a HOLLIS record.  Change Any field to Subject for cleanest results.   

  • --Archives
  • --Caricatures and cartoons
  • --Correspondence
  • --Description and travel
  • --Diaries
  • --Interviews
  • --Manuscripts
  • --Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
  • --Oral histories
  • --Personal narratives (refers to accounts of wars and diseases only)
  • --Pictorial works
  • --Sources (usually refers to collections of published primary sources)

Example:
Subject contains: "AIDS Disease" OR HIV OR "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome"
AND
Subject contains: Archives OR Correspondence OR Diaries OR Manuscripts OR Sources OR Narratives OR Interviews OR Oral

When you find a pertinent book, go to Starts With.../Browse and put in the call number, adjusting the menu to Library of Congress (Wid-LC) or Other. This shows you other books on the same subject, even though they may be in storage or checked out.

You can limit to Show only: Online, BUT):

  • You can request Scan&Deliver for two chapters from a book.  Tables of contents are often included in HOLLIS records, in Google Books, Amazon Look Inside, or can be requested via Scan&Deliver

See the Library Research Guide for History and the HOLLIS Help guide for more information on searching HOLLIS.

Bibliographies

Find bibliographies in HOLLIS Library Catalog by searching your keyword plus the word Bibliography (which must be limited to Subject).

Subject contains: "AIDS Disease" OR HIV OR "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome"
AND
Subject contains: Bibliography

Diaries and Other Personal Accounts

Personal Accounts in HOLLIS: In the HOLLIS Library Catalog Advanced Search, several Subject terms refer to personal accounts.  Combine topical keywords with  the Subject words: Narratives, Diaries, Correspondence, Interviews, Oral history (or Oral histories)

Narratives is short for Personal narratives which refers to accounts of wars and of diseases.

In HOLLIS:

Subject exact phrase: AIDS Disease
AND
Subject contains: sources OR narratives OR diaries OR correspondence OR interviews OR oral

Autobiographies usually bear only the Subject term Biography. Sometimes the terms Autobiographies or Autobiography is present.

In HOLLIS:

Subject contains: AIDS Disease patients
AND
Subject contains: biography OR autobiograph*

Oral History Online indexes oral history collections, with links to interview-level bibliographic records and to full-text materials, audio files and visual files where these are available.

Office of National Institutes of Health Oral History Archive

In Their Own Words: NIH Researchers Recall the Early Years of AIDS: National Institutes of Health Office of History – Images, documents, and oral history interview transcripts documenting the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic

A guide to finding additional diaries and autobiographies is available in Finding Biographical Information.

Digital Libraries

Finding Primary Sources Online  offers methods for finding digital libraries and digital collections on the open Web  and for finding Digital Libraries/Collections by Region or Language.

HathiTrust Digital Library includes a searchable database of digitized books and periodicals contributed by numerous libraries. Includes items contributed by these libraries to Google Books and to Internet Archive but with some unique material. Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata. The catalog can be searched separately. Globally full text searchable, like Google Books but unlike Internet Archive. Full text is fully viewable.

Internet Archive

Document Collections

To find more collections of primary sources in HOLLIS Library Catalog, search Sources as a Subject keyword. Sources usually refers to published collections of primary sources of several different types. 

Subject contains: "AIDS Disease" OR HIV OR "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome"
AND
Subject contains: Sources
  [Use caps for AND]

Since Sources is a common word, 'Limit to: Subject' eliminates many irrelevant results.

Global Health Chronicles: AIDS

HIV and AIDS 30 Years Ago (1981-2011) Contains oral histories, interviews, primary documents, and other materials documenting the cultural, social, and public health history of HIV/AIDS, 1981-2011

Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), 1957-1995, is a US government agency which translates foreign language books, newspapers, journals, unclassified foreign documents and research reports. Limit by continent or country. Use Subject: AIDS Disease

News

For US newspaper coverage, see Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes.

For foreign newspaper coverage, see Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes.

For broadcast news, see the Library Research Guide for History.

Periodicals

Internet Archive: Enter Periodicals at Collection is:  Several AIDS related periodicals.

For coverage in US popular periodicals see Library Research Guide for History: General and Popular Periodicals

Policy Literature

PolicyFile (1990-) offers public policy reports and studies published by think tanks, university research programs, research organizations including the OECD, IMF, World Bank, the Rand Corporation, and a number of federal agencies.

Policy Archive is a digital library of public policy research containing over 30,000 documents.

Think Tank Search - from the Kennedy School of Government, a customized Google search of documents produced by think tanks.

Google advanced search. You can limit by domain: .org

Visual Sources

Records for many individual Harvard University Library images and for films are available in HOLLIS.  Limit search with Resource type: Images or Resource type: Videos/Film.

Films 

Internet Archive:  Adjust Mediatype to Movies

Images

AIDS Posters: UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library – 625 posters from 44 countries.  Issued by a variety of institutions to educate and warn people about AIDS

AIDS Posters: Wellcome Digital Collections

AIDS Poster Collection Digitized posters from 44 countries.

NYPL Digital Gallery Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) includes prints and photographs from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Images From the History of the Public Health Service: a Photographic Exhibit.

Historical Medical Poster Collection Over 500 posters aimed at educating the public about health issues.

Wellcome Images