Murrell Library Research Guides: African-Americans &amp; the Black Experience: Databases &amp; Books for African-American Research

Databases and Newspapers

Academic Search Complete
EBSCOhost. Our largest interdisciplinary database containing full-text and bibliographic content from a wide range of academic disciplines.
American History Database (Infobase)
Encyclopedia entries, book chapters, biographies, primary sources, videos and slideshows, images, timelines, and maps and graphs on American history. The "Decades and Eras" and "Daily Life" sections provides information about various time periods. “Suggested Research Topics” provides guidance for research. Also covers multicultural and social history, foreign affairs, and wars. Includes K-12 education lesson plans.
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HeritageQuest
A comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources—rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, convenient research guides, interactive census maps, and more.
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Historical Abstracts (abstracts only)
EBSCOhost. Abstracts of articles (exclusing the U.S. and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women’s history, history of education, and more. Indexes more than 2,300 academic historical journals in over 40 languages dating back to 1955.
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Humanities International Complete
EBSCOhost. Full text of over 1,200 journals and eBooks, as well as indexing for over 2,300 journals. Includes all data from the Humanities International Index.
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Issues & Controversies (Facts on File/InfoBase)
Balanced coverage of international topics and how historical events and conflicts have influenced U.S. and world history. The database is divided into four sections—American History Eras, World History Eras, History Regions, and History Subjects. Includes videos, teacher lesson plans/handouts, primary sources, encyclopedia articles, editorial cartoons, court cases, and timelines.
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Missouri Digital Heritage
Access to more than 9 million records through Missouri Digital Heritage, including the collections of the Missouri State Archives, the Missouri State Library and other institutions from across the state.
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Missouri State Publications
A collection of selected Missouri State Government publications from Missouri State Agencies contributed to the Internet Archives by the Missouri State Library.
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Chronicle of Higher Education
News, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators. Requires single-user login; ask for assistance from library personnel.
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Newspaper Source
Provides cover-to-cover full text for hundreds of national (U.S.), international and regional newspapers. In addition, it offers television and radio news transcripts from major networks.
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Regional Business News
EBSCOhost. Full text coverage of more than 80 regional U.S. business publications.
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Archival Films and Newsreels
Historical and archival films from multiple sources, including: The Prelinger Archives – U.S. cultural and social history; The WPA Film Library – over 2,800 clips and newsreels since the late 1800s; The United Newsreel collection – World War II newsreels from the U.S. Office of War Information; The Universal Newsreel collection – 7 to 10 minute newsreels, released twice per week between 1929 and 1967; Recordings from the National Archives and Records Administration of historic speeches and events.
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Credo Reference eBooks
Full-text reference eBooks, images, audio & video files, real-time research on controversial issues, and pro/con arguments. Includes special tools such as a Mind Map, topic search, and image search.
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eBooks from EBSCO (eMO)
Full text eBbooks, including academic, general, science, K-12, open dissertations, and nursing/health books.
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Films on Demand (InfoBase)
Full-length streaming videos in a variety of core subject areas.
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Google Books
Google Books provides the largest collection of digitized books. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, many are restricted to snippets. Also, Google Books is also populated with magazines (which can be good or bad depending on what you are looking for). Click on the advanced search feature so you can restrict your search to full-text only and books.
The Internet Text Archives
The Internet Text Archives provides access to millions of free digital texts. The books here are divided into several sections, including books from American libraries (the largest section with 1.2 million texts), books from Canadian libraries, Open Source books, Project Gutenberg, and Children’s Library. If you want to browse check the nav on the right for the most popular downloads of all time, the most popular downloads of this week, and Editor’s Picks. You can do keyword searches, too. If you want to do anything beyond a simple keyword search I recommend you go straight to the advanced search page; there are so many fields available to search that it’s hard to remember them all. The advanced search is easier.

Overdrive eBooks, Audiobooks, Video
eBooks, audiobooks, and streaming video. Materials include popular fiction, literature, career materials, and a variety of academic titles including nursing, business, and computer science. Use Overdrive may be used on computer or tablet. For mobile use, download the Libby App from the Apple App Store, Google Play, or the Microsoft Store. Overdrive and Libby App instructions are available here.
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Open Dissertations
EBSCOhost. Provides citations to graduate theses and dissertations from the early 20th century to the present. Incorporates the American Doctoral Dissertations database.
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Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg provides access to electronic texts of many works related to African Americans. Check out the African American Writers Bookshelf for some examples! For another example, see Norman Coombs, The Black Experience in America.

Sage Knowledge eBooks
Sage ebooks include scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, business cases studies, and streaming video. Find Sage eBooks by searching MVC's Avalon library catalog, or directly on the Sage site.
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Salem Press eBooks
eBooks from Salem Press.
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