ASIA 490: Asia in Comparative Perspective, Tea and Opium

Get Started With Reference Sources

Reference sources can help you get started with your research and/or expand your topic.

Browse the reference collection, on the second floor of the library near HelpLine, or search the Kenyon reference collection.

Selected Reference Materials

Oxford Reference Online
Search a variety of dictionaries and subject-specific resources.

Cambridge World History of Food (KEN Reference TX353 .C255 2000)

Science and Civilisation in China, by Joseph Needham (KEN Main DS721 .N39)
Of special interest are the volumes devoted to botany, agriculture, and medicine. Remember that not all reference sources are in the reference stacks.

Finding Books

The CONSORT catalog can be used to locate books, government documents, microforms, video and sound recordings, and special collections materials available in the Kenyon, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wooster libraries.

In addition to CONSORT, Kenyon students also hae access to OhioLINK, the combined catalog of 85+ libraries throughout Ohio.

WorldCat is a catalog of library holdings throughout the country and world. It contains records for many types of materials: books, sound recordings, video recordings, manuscripts, etc. Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to request items not in CONSORT or OhioLINK. Delivery time will vary depending on the location of the material.

Strategies

Begin by searching with keywords (words that you create), and then use Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Examples of relevant subject headings:

Browsing: when browsing the reference collection or the main stacks, make use of the Library of Congress Classification Scheme.

Subclass D: World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

  • DA: History of Great Britain
  • DAW: Central Europe
  • DJK: Eastern Europe
  • DK: History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics
  • DS: Asia
  • DT: Africa

Finding Trade and Statistical Information

Business Source Complete
Indexes over 3200 periodicals and contains full text for over 2700 scholarly journals and business periodicals covering management, economics, finance, accounting, international business, etc. Business Source Complete contains full text from the world's top management and marketing journals and also includes many leading journals in the areas of economics, finance, and accounting, as well as country economic reports.

AGRICOLA (1970 - )
Includes over 4.3 million records covering every major agricultural subject. It is updated monthly and is compiled by the National Agricultural Library of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Finding Scholarly Journal Articles

CONSORT and OhioLINK don't contain information about individual articles within journals, and they don't always contain information about articles in anthologies or other book-length collections. You can find journal articles by searching for them in indexes (in print and online). In many cases, you'll be able to access the full text of an article.


When you've identified a promising article that isn't available online, check CONSORT to determine if Kenyon holds the journal that you need. (Remember to search by the journal title, not the title of the article.) If Kenyon doesn't own the journal, use the Interlibrary Loan Request Form to request a photocopy of the article.

Subject-Specific Journal Article Indexes

Historical Abstracts (1955-- )
Indexes and abstracts scholarly literature on the history of the world, except the United States and Canada, from 1450 to the present. Use the FindIt button to see if we have articles fulltext online or in print.

Anthropology Plus (1983 - )
This resource combines formerly two separate databases: Anthropological Literature and Anthropological Index. This resource indexes articles from over 1,000 journals and 200 edited works each year in anthropology and related fields. Focus is on the fields of archaeology, cultural and social anthropology, biological and physical anthropology, and linguistics. It also covers the periodical collection of the British Museum Department of Ethnography (Museum of Mankind). Entries are compiled from over 750 journals received in the Department of Ethnography. It also includes citations from related fields, e.g. botany, demography, folklore, religion, etc.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (1971--)
Maintained by the University of Michigan, an index to a variety of western-language publications (books and journal articles) dealing with all aspects of Asia.

Social Sciences Abstracts
Indexes and abstracts articles from English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere. Coverage includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of social sciences journals. (1994-)

Social Sciences Citation Index (1980-- )
The Social Sciences Citation Index indexes 1,700 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It contains searchable, full-length, English-language author abstracts for approximately 60% of the articles in the database. It's also helpful to select "Arts & Humanities Citation Index" as some History journals are considered to be Humanities journals. The cited reference search tool can also help you to find connected articles: articles that cite articles and authors you've found.

Google Scholar
Take advantage of the power and ease of Google searching, restricted to academic work. When possible, citations are linked to Kenyon and OhioLINK sources (subscription, proprietary information).

Finding Published Primary Sources

Search for published primary sources in CONSORT, OhioLINK, and WorldCat

Published primary sources, particularly those in English, will be the easiest to find. Use keywords and Library of Congress subject headings in the CONSORT catalog. Choose keywords (remember to use synonyms), and then add one of the following subheadings:

  • correspondence
  • diaries
  • early works to 1800
  • interviews
  • pamphlets
  • personal narratives
  • sources

You can also limit your CONSORT search by date of publication--for instance, 1861-1865.

For additional suggestions, refer to these suggested subject headings. You can also ask for help at the Information Desk.

Remember that CONSORT is the combined catalog of only four schools, so you will most likely need to search OhioLINK (available within CONSORT) and WorldCat.

WorldCat is a catalog of library holdings throughout the country and world. While not totally comprehensive, it contains records for any type of materials: books, sound recordings, video recordings, manuscripts, etc. You can use the same search strategy with all three catalogs. Click the ILL button from within WorldCat to request an item. Delivery time will vary depending on the item's originating library.

Internet Resources

Questions to ask yourself as you evaluate Internet resources

Tools to use when evaluating Web sites:

  • Alexa
    Determine website traffic.
  • InterNIC
    Public Information Regarding Internet Domain Name Registration Services.
  • Librarians' Internet Index
    Look for website evaluations and annotations in this searchable directory of librarian-evaluated Internet resources.
  • Internet Scout Project (University of Wisconsin)
    Directory of new and newly-evaluated Internet resources of interest to scholars and researchers.

Selected Websites

Writing & Citing

Style manuals are located at the Information Desk. For information on discipline-specific style manuals, click here. You can also use RefWorks to keep track of your sources; you'll need to create a new username and password.

Zotero, a Firefox extension developed by The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, is also another option for keeping track of sources, especially Web sites.

Need help?

For more information on primary sources, visit the primary sources research guide or contact a librarian.

For an individual research consultation, contact:

Nina Clements
Librarian & Technology Consultant
740.427.5668
email: clementsn@kenyon.edu