Research Guide for Asian American Studies 175
Winter 2007

Resources at the UCSB Libraries for interdisciplinary fields like Asian American Studies come from various disciplines and subject areas (ie. History, Social Sciences, Literary criticism, etc.). While few electronic databases have been developed specific to the field of Asian American Studies, many of our library resources contain materials relevant to Asian American Studies.

Unless otherwise noted most of the articles and indexes databases listed in this webpage are available from the library's homepage under Research
What is a primary source?

Primary sources of information present data that has not been analyzed or interpreted in any way; these are original research, eyewitness accounts, and creative works from the time period, usually presented in their original form and serve to help interpret an event. Examples: newspaper articles, speeches, photographs, interviews, internet communications or other forms of correspondence, sets of data, patents, conference proceedings, autobiographies, government records and congressional hearings.

More about primary sources...

What is a secondary source?

Secondary sources take the information from the primary source and analyze, summarize, discuss, interpret, evaluate, report or build on it in some way; are one or more steps removed from the event or information they refer to. Examples: works of criticism, commentaries, journal articles (particularly outside the sciences), history, biographies, review articles, popular magazine articles.

From the Library's home page, select RESEARCH then ARTICLE INDEXES & DATABASES to access the following select databases.
To access these databases from off campus, you must go through the proxy server.

Humanities

Social and Life Sciences

Literature

Multi-discipline (Gender, Ethnic, and Area) and catalogs

Primary and Archival Sources

The Art of the Oral Historian
This article was written by David Russell, director of the Oral History Program at Davidson Library.

Search Strategies

When available use the advance search function. This gives you all the search options available in the database. You will need to think about the terms you will use, how to combine them, and more importantly, the time period. Think of related terms about your topic.

Finding Sources

Select the appropriate database for your topic. If the full-text is available online this will be clearly marked with a link from the database. Otherwise you can click UC e-links to find out if you can get the full-text through the MELVYL catalog.

Otherwise you will need to search the journal title in the catalog to determine if the library own a copy of the journal.

To access these databases from off campus, you must go through the proxy server. From the Library's home page, select RESEARCH then ARTICLE INDEXES & DATABASES to find the following databases that contain your assigned periodicals A citation has the following basic information: journal title, author, article title, publication date, volume and page numbers. You will need the journal title to find out if the library owns a copy.

Use Pegasus, to find the periodicals that you need. The Pegasus record will indicate in what formats these titles are available i.e. microfilm, print copy or electronic text. You will need to get the Call Number and location in order to find the particular periodical in the library.

For example:
Further assistance! Don't forget to ASK FOR HELP when you need it. You can find a reference librarian at the Main Reference Desk during the week, weekends and even on holidays. For reference help please call (805) 893.3133. Gerardo (Gary) Colmenar: colmenar@library.ucsb.edu.