History 146P

Conflict and Gender in the Middle East

LOCATING MATERIALS

Pegasus
To find books, journal titles, videos, and other materials in the UCSB library, use Pegasus.

Do KEYWORD searches

Here are some subject subheadings which usually indicate primary source material:

Melvyl
Melvyl is the combined catalog of all ten of the University of California libraries, including UCSB. Searching works as it does in Pegasus (e.g. keywords). You use the exact same subject headings and subheadings in Melvyl as you use in Pegasus. Items which the UCSB library has received and not yet cataloged, will not appear in Melvyl. These "In Process" materials not only appear in Pegasus, but you may also request the item. Clicking the request button on the holdings screen triggers an order to catalog the item.

World Cat may be useful if you are looking for materials which do not appear in Melvyl. This union catalog contains millions of records from libraries around the country, including the Library of Congress. Some libraries in the UK and other parts of the world are also included. You use the exact same subject headings and subheadings in WorldCat as you use in Pegasus and Melvyl.

INDEXES TO ARTICLES, DOCUMENTS, ETC

To find journal articles you will need to use an article index. Finding articles is a two-step process. First, you need to find the citation to an appropriate article in an index and then you need to find the actual article by using UC e-Links, Pegasus, or the Electronic Journals List. Indexes to articles are found on the Library's RESEARCH page Online Resources. The searching methods will vary from index to index, but you will almost always find "help" or "tips" screens. Listed below are three indexes of particular importance for this class

Index Islamicus

Academic Search Complete

Historical Abstracts

RAMBI Index of Articles on Jewish Studies and ... Erez Israel

Index to Jewish Periodicals - call no. REF Z6367.I5

Middle East Abstracts and Index - call no. REF DS41.M44

REFERENCE RESOURCES

Encyclopedias will give you a broad organized overview of your topic. The articles usually will include a bibliography in which you will find suggestions for further reading. Specialized encyclopedias, along with specialized dictionaries, will help you to define terms and give additional terms which may be useful in your search. The following online encyclopedias and dictionary are the most important ones for researching your topics

Encyclopedia of Islam
Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures

Pointers for searching the above:

Oxford Dictionary of Islam

Encyclopaedia Iranica REF DS253.E53 1982

Encyclopedia Judaica REF DS102.8.E59 and REF DS102.8.E498 consists of 16 base volumes plus 8 yearbooks, and 2 decennials. Also available on CD (DS102.8.E496 1997)

The Coptic Encyclopedia REF BX130.5.C66 1991

FILMS OF MIDDLE EAST INTEREST IN THE UCSB LIBRARY

FOR FURTHER RESOURCES you can check out

  • Middle East Studies Subject Page

    INDEXES TO WEBSITES

    ONLINE NEWSPAPER DATABASES

    A WORD ABOUT JOURNAL COLLECTION DATABASES

    Journal collection databases contain full-text articles. Two of the best known, because they contain a large number of Middle East-related journals, are JSTOR and Project Muse. You will often be referred to them. However, you need to be aware of their drawbacks. You cannot refine your searches to the same degree that you can in a real index (there are no advanced or combination type searches, for example). You need to remember that each database has a finite number of journal titles, so you will not be searching as broad a universe of journal titles as you will with the above indexes. Some, such as JSTOR, DO NOT contain current articles. In some cases, titles may migrate in or out of the database.

    For further assistance, please contact the librarian for Middle Eastern Studies, Meryle Gaston.