Databases and Newspapers
- Academic Search Complete
EBSCOhost. Our largest interdisciplinary database containing full-text and bibliographic content from a wide range of academic disciplines.
-------------------------------- - America History & Life (abstracts only)
EBSCOhost.An annotated bibliography focusing on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes article abstracts, reviews, and citations to dissertations.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - BASE: Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (partial full text)
Indexes open-access academic resources including journals, institutional repositories, and digital collections. About 60% of the sources are available in full text. BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.
-------------------------------- - Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
ProQuest. Features select full text primary source documents related to critical people and events in Black Freedom and African American history.
-------------------------------- - Google Scholar
The academic form of Google, Scholar will search for scholarly articles and books instead of websites. This includes a large number of scholarly eJournal articles subscribed to by Murrell Library. To get full text articles, you must go to “Settings” and select Missouri Valley College in the “Library Links” the very first time you use Google Scholar on your computer. Your computer will save this information and you will not have to enter it again. Click here for a guide to setting up Google Scholar.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - Independent Voices (JSTOR)
Alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
-------------------------------- - Masterfile Premier
EBSCOhost. An interdisciplinary database with provides full text for nearly 1,700 periodicals. Selected full-text dates from. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Premier also contains full text for nearly 500 reference books andand many primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 592,000 photos, maps & flags.
-------------------------------- - Public Affairs Index (abstracts only)
EBSCOhost. Abstracts of articles on global contemporary public policy issues including public health, the environment, housing, human and civil rights, international conflict, and natural disasters. This database draws on a diverse array of scholarly publications, conference papers, government documents, and current reference works.
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- Congress.gov
Provides access to Congressional reports, legislation, congressional records, and other legislative information.
-------------------------------- - Congressional Research Service Reports
Contains reports from the Congressional Research Service, which provides valuable insight and non-partisan analysis of issues of public debate.
-------------------------------- - Data.gov
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data. Contains data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, etc.
-------------------------------- - Explore Census Data
Contains data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. (Formerly American Factfinder.)
-------------------------------- - IssueLab
Candid's online catalog of research reports, case studies, issue briefs, literature reviews, and annual reports published or funded by U.S. foundations. Links to the full text reports are provided. Covers 1971-present.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - USA.GOV Data & Statistics
Contains a variety of government statistical information.
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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.
-------------------------------- - Independent Voices (JSTOR)
Alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - New York Times Online
Contains current issues as well as past issues and archives dating back to 1851. You will need to create your own unique login the first time that you access the New York Times. Mobile app available. You must be on campus or in our WiFi when you create your login.
-------------------------------- - Regional Business News
EBSCOhost. Full text coverage of more than 80 regional U.S. business publications.
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Finding Books
- Mobius Catalog
A catalog of 78 libraries in 5 states, including MVC. You can request items we don't own to be sent to Murrell Library.
-------------------------------- - Prospector Library CatalogProspector is a unified catalog of academic, public and special libraries in Colorado and Wyoming. You can borrow items we don't own and have them delivered to Murrell Library.
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Books are shelved by Library of Congress call numbers. Use Avalon, the library's online catalog, to find books and eBooks. The following subject headings and terms can be useful search terms in many of the databases including the library catalog.
In the Library of Congress subject headings, the standard search term for African American or Black American is African American, but works may also be listed under African Americans (plural) when the subject deals with African Americans as a group. The term African American is used primarily as an adjective modifying another group designation. In other words, African Americans -- Civil rights deals with the civil rights of African Americans, while African American Civil rights workers refers to civil rights workers who are African American.
In Murrell Library, books with African Americans as the primary subject heading have call numbers beginning with E185. You can browse both print books and eBooks by using Avalon and doing a call number search on E185. Many other books with African Americans as subject heading will be located elsewhere in the library depending upon content, so search Avalon to make sure you don't miss anything. Some subject headings include:
- African American church musicians
- African American college students
- African American families
- African American music [In place of African American songs]
- African American women abolitionists
- African American women clergy
- African American women social reformers
- African Americans -- Suffrage
- American drama -- African American authors
- Anniversaries
- Bibliography
- Biography
- Black English
- Black power -- United States
- Civil rights
- Civil rights - United States
- Civil rights workers -- United States
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Education
- Folklore
- Free African Americans
- Harlem Renaissance
- Hip-hop
- History
- Intellectual life
- Literature
- Periodicals
- Political activity
- Poor People's Campaign
- Rap (music)
- Religion
- Selma-Montgomery Rights March, 1965
- Slaves' writings, American
- Social conditions
- Social life and customs
- Societies, etc
- Songs and music
- Spirituals (Songs) [In place of African American spirituals]
When searching for groups who temporarily reside in the United States (such as resident aliens, students from abroad, etc.), use Blacks -- United States. For searches involving blacks who do not reside in the United States, use Blacks -- [country, city, etc.]. For example: Blacks -- Brazil.
- American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Streaming access to over 7,000 historic public radio and television programs along with data records for approximately 2.5 million items.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - C-SPAN Video Library
Video programming of floor proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, public affairs events, congressional hearings, press briefings, speeches, and news conferences related to public affairs.
-------------------------------- - 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.
-------------------------------- - eBooks from EBSCO (eMO)
Full text eBbooks, including academic, general, science, K-12, open dissertations, and nursing/health books.
-------------------------------- - Films on Demand (InfoBase)
Full-length streaming videos in a variety of core subject areas.
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- Google BooksGoogle 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 ArchivesThe 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.
-------------------------------- - 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
Over 5,100 titles, including 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.
-------------------------------- - Salem Press eBooks
eBooks from Salem Press.
-------------------------------- - Springer Open Access eBooks
983 eBook titles from Springer.
-------------------------------- - Taylor & Francis Open eBooks
Over 1,650 eBooks from a prominent publisher.
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