COLLECTIONS:

Special Collections

University Archives

Collection Preservation

Research Collections:
History Collection

Collection Overview
The history collection supports the undergraduate and graduate instructional and research needs of the History Department and the research needs of its faculty. The primary emphasis areas are European and United States history, followed by Latin American history, with lesser emphases on African, Asian and Middle Eastern history. Women's studies is an area of emphasis, and Asia an area of anticipated future growth. The collection supports the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern European history, American History, and Latin American history. It also supports the History Department's sponsorship of the interdisciplinary M.A. in European National Studies, which concentrates on the history and language of a single European nation, and an M.A. in Medieval Studies. Approval plans for the major European languages support research. An increasing sector of collections has been committed to electronic research indexes and full text electronic sources.

Robert Bruns
History Bibliographer
1-617-552-4832
E-Mail: bruns@bc.edu

Selected Resources

In the O'Neill Library:

• In American history, sources include the works of the major American historians, major public documents series, bibliographies and biographical sources, national and local newspapers on microfilm, the Columbia University Oral History collections, some of the major historical society documents and collections, including most of the historical societies in the Northeast, and strong collections of New England and Massachusetts local history, including Boston history. There is strong monographic coverage of all major periods of American history, collections on the West, collections on the Jesuits, and coverage of military history, with sections on the Civil War, World War I and World War II, and the Cold War, with extensive monographic and microfilm holdings on the Vietnam War. Microfilm holdings on U.S. foreign relations also include several of the U.S. Department of State files on other countries. Microfilm collections also include the National Inventory of Documentary Sources, the microfilmed holdings of the presidential libraries going back to Franklin Roosevelt (with the exception of the Kennedy Library, which students are expected to visit locally), presidential papers back to President Washington, personal papers of other historical individuals, the early American periodical holdings of the American Periodicals Series, the holdings of the Library of American Civilization, and the microfilmed Early American Imprints and American Colonial Records.

• In European history, strengths include England and Ireland, with major documentary series, including the Calendars of Rolls and State Papers and other medieval manuscripts series in printed format on shelf, the Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, the medieval publications of the University of Oxford and the Oxford Historical Society,  the domesday book, and the microfilm set Manuscripta. Also on the shelves are the publications of the Navy Records Society and the Victoria Histories of the Counties of England. Many of the public document series for Great Britain and Ireland are also available on shelf and in microfilm, and the Public Record Office series for Exchequer, Cabinet, Colonial Office, Foreign Office and Home Office records are available in microfilm. There is also a collection on the history of London and extensive coverage of modern Ireland on shelf (see Irish Studies ).  French history materials include general documentary sources on the history of France, a substantial collection of standard histories, memoirs and biographies, and strong coverage of the French Revolution and nineteenth and twentieth century France. German history monographs include the Monumenta Germania Historica, strong holdings on twentieth century Germany, particularly the Nazi period, and several microfilmed holdings including the Reich Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories. The collection also includes microfilm from the Austrian archives. Italy is represented in the history call number area with collections on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and a good representation of works in the Italian language.Classical history is also well represented in the collection (see Classical Studies ). Russian history collections stress the Soviet period and after, with strong recent Russian language holdings, research collections which include both printed and microfilmed documentary sets, important newspapers, the Smolensk archives and Russian Historical Sources.

• Latin American history holdings are strong in the ABC countries (Argentina, Brazil and Chile), and have become stronger in recent years in other areas (see Latin American Studies).They also include several microfilm series dealing with Latin American countries and the Human Relations Area Files for Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

• Book and serial collections on Africa, Asia and the Middle East have also been strengthened in recent years and microfilm holdings have been increased through the addition of research series such as the British Foreign Office and Department of State files on China.

• Indexes on CD-ROM: Database of Classical Bibliography (L'année philologique), Griffiths Valuation, International Medieval Bibliography, Urbadisc, Index to American Periodicals of the 1700's and 1800's, Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900,

• Full text databases on CD-ROM:  19th Century African American Newspapers, CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts, Dictionary of American Biography, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia.

On the Web (Restricted to the BC Community):

• Subject indexes to the literature:  Historical Abstracts (World history minus U.S. and Canada from 1450 to the present, indexing over 2,000 history journals from around the world from 1954 to the present), America: History and Life (U.S. and Canadian history from pre-history to the present, indexing over 2,000 history journals from around the world from 1964 to the present).

• General indexes: Poole's Plus ("The Digital Index of the Nineteenth Century" includes an electronic version of  Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and a number of other indexes), Periodical Contents Index (Indexes thousands of journals in the humanities and social sciences from their first volume to 1990/91. Includes many important history journals, and, for history, its great strength  is its electronic retrospective indexing of journal articles from earlier time periods), Expanded Academic Index ASAP (InfoTrac) (Covers recent academic and popular periodicals, including the news and opinion magazines used by historians for research, with partial full text and abstracts), Reader's Guide (1983-).

• Other specialized indexes of interest to historians: Archives USA (finding aids for archival collections), Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Biography and Genealogy Master Index, Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, Dissertation Abstracts Online (FirstSearch version), FRANCIS Bulletin Signalétique (an index of some 3,700 journals in various European languages 1984- produced at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, strong on the humanities and social sciences, including  much of interest to historians from the areas of religion, literature and art and other areas, as well as from historical journals), GPO (index to U.S. government publications from 1976-), Hispanic American Periodicals Index (index to articles in over 400 scholarly journals worldwide in English, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish from 1970-), Index to Early American Periodicals 1700-1850 (which indexes journals in the microfilmed American Periodicals Series), and many other indexes in other subject areas of interest to historians.

• Full text databases: ARTFL (French texts), Boston Globe (1980-), CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online (recent full text think tank reports and books), Ethnic Newswatch (full text articles from 200 ethnic, minority and native press ,1990-), Gender Watch (140 international publications, reports and papers on women and gender issues back to the 1970's), Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (Recent news, business, legal research, medical, and reference materials. The news is both U.S. and international, with full text newspapers, wire services, and television and radio transcripts from recent years), World News Connection (translations of foreign news reports for various regions of the world).

• Full text electronic journals: On the Online Databases link on the BC Libraries' homepage are two gateways to electronic full text journals in history: JSTOR (which has 15 historical journals full text from their first issues to 1990/91, plus full text back runs of journals in African American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Political Science, Population Studies, Sociology and other areas of interest to historians), and Project Muse (which has electronic full text current runs 1990- of journals published at Johns Hopkins University and selected other publishers).

• Other databases in the humanities: Subject Indexes to Online Databases: Humanities.  This web page also has links to databases outside the humanities.

Research Guides
More information about available resources can be found in the following resource guides: Research Guide: University Archives and Research Guide: United States History.

Interdisciplinary Elements of Subject Area
Collection development in the area of history intersects with the areas of black studies, classical studies, women's studies, Irish studies, sociology, political science, business, theology and science (see collection statements of these areas). Works of history are collected for the above areas and other areas where there may not be an emphasis in the respective program on history, for example as in business history. A large number of materials of historical interest are collected in the Library of Congress "H" section, which includes sociology, business and economics.

Formats and Types of Materials
Formats collected include print, electronic, microform, and audiovisual. Types of materials include monographs, serials, and reference works including major indexes, abstracts, catalogs, bibliographies, yearbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, research guides, and directories.

Languages
Collection emphasis is primarily in English, with materials collected also in French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish.  Other languages are selectively collected.

Geographic Areas (Subject Approach)
The major emphases are on Europe and the United States, with emphasis also on Latin America, and there is broad collection development for Africa, Asia and the Middle East along with specific targeting of program needs for those areas. Selected works are collected for other areas.

Time Periods (Subject Approach)
History by its nature lends itself to an interest in all time periods. There is more emphasis from the medieval period to the present than on ancient history.

Date of Publication
Although the bulk of collecting is current imprints, much emphasis in library purchasing for the History Department is placed on retrospective acquisitions. Consequently, publishing dates range from the present as far back as they can go, but items considered rare or in need of special handling are housed in the Burns Library's special collections.

Subject Areas Collected by Library of Congress Classification Number
BCAT, the online catalog, can be searched by LC classification number to get a better idea of what specific titles the history collection contains.  For example, the command c=D501 will produce the beginning of a list of works on World War I. This list can be browsed by pressing the F8 key or typing f and pressing the Enter/Return key.