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Environmental Studies/History 235

Green Injustice: Environment and Equity in North American History

Immigration officers ...
Reference Books
Journals
Indexes and Databases
Web Sites
Government Documents
Library Catalog
Research Strategy

Professor: Matthew Klingle
Librarian: Ginny Hopcroft
Fall 2005

The purpose of this guide is to help students do effective scholarly research on this topic. The librarians at the reference desk will be glad to assist with specific questions.

Reference Books

Columbia Guide to American Environmental History
Main Ref GF501 .M47 2002

The New American History, Eric Foner, ed.
Main Libr E175 .N53 1990

Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates
Main Ref E174.5 .C3 1993

Encyclopedia of American Social History
Main Ref HN57 .E58 1993

Harvard Guide to American History
Main Ref Z1236 .F77 1974

Major Problems in American Environmental History:Documents and Essays
Science GE150 .M35 1993

Nature's Nation:an Environmental History of the United States
Science GE150 .O65 1998

The Reader's Companion to American History
Main Ref E174 .R43 1991

Journals and Newspapers

High Country News: a biweekly paper that focuses on environmental and natural resources issues in the Western United States.
http://www.hcn.org/

Environmental News Network: a daily on-line journal dedicated to environmental news.
http://www.enn.com/

Grist Magazine:a daily online environmental magazine that tackles environmental topics with irreverence, intelligence, and diversity of perspectives.
http://www.gristmagazine.com/

Environmental History 1997-
Main Periodical

Environmental Action 1971-1977
Main Periodical

Indexes and Databases

Some of these databases are strictly bibliographic, i.e. they provide citation only. Others contain the full text of the journal articles, for all or some of their indexed publications. To discover whether Bowdoin Library either holds the journal in print or provides access to the full text, please select the "Find Journals" search screen on the Library Gateway and enter the name of the journal in the search form.

LexisNexis Academic
Library Gateway

LexisNexis Academic is a full-text web database of news and legal information. This database provides access to both current news and up to 20 years of retrospective news, both domestic and international. To access regional U.S. newspapers, select U.S. News in "News Category" and the appropriate state in "News Source."

Academic Search Premier
Library Gateway

Academic Search Premier indexes over 1800 peer reviewed journals in the social sciences, humanities and science, as well as general interest magazines and a few national American newspapers. Date coverage varies between periodicals some as far back as 1980; about 60% of the articles are in full text.

America History and Life
Library Gateway

This scholarly bibliographic source indexes articles, books and dissertations about the history of the United States and Canada published throughout the world. It is a subject index which provides citations and abstracts for the works indexed. Coverage is 1964 to present.

History Journals in the J-Stor Electronic Journal Service
Library Gateway

The J-Stor service makes available fulltext articles from selected scholarly journals. All articles from all years of the journal are reproduced, except for the most recent five years of the journal. When you go to the J-Stor screen, click the SEARCH button to access a search screen and to choose your subject grouping of journals to search.

LexisNexis Congressional
Library Gateway

Congressional Indexes, 1789-1970: this section of Lexis Nexis Congressional provides bibliographic citations for nearly two centuries of congressional publications.

Government Documents Monthly Catalog
Library Gateway
Government Index

Bowdoin's collection of U.S. government documents is not yet fully cataloged, so this online index is used to locate government publications. Produced by the Government Printing Office, the Monthly Catalog indexes government documents back to 1976. For earlier indexing, please consult the print version of the Monthly Catalog, beginning in
1892 and located in the Government Documents Collection. When you locate a relevant document in this index, please make note of the "Sudocs" number in order to locate the document in Bowdoin's collection.

Periodical Contents Index
Library Gateway

This source provides online indexing to nearly 2400 periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, published from 1770 to 1990. It provides bibliographic access to many of the Library's 19th and early 20th century journals.

Poole's Index
Main Per Index
Poole's Index is a subject index to British and American periodicals of the nineteenth century, created by a Chicago librarian during the last half of the century. This index provides excellent subject access to the articles in Bowdoin Library's substantial collection of nineteenth century periodicals.

Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS)
Library Gateway
Periodical Index

PAIS indexes "publications on all subjects that bear on contemporary public issues and the making and evaluation of public policy, irrespective of source or traditional disciplinary boundaries." Sources may be periodical articles, books, government documents or the reports of public and private organizations in the U.S. and internationally. Coverage for the electronic version begins with 1972 and continues to the
present. The print version covers 1915 to 1985.

Reader's Guide Retrospective
Library Gateway
Main Per Index
The print Reader's Guide is an easy-to-use author/subject index to a broad range of U.S. general interest magazines and journals. A special value of the Reader's Guide for this class is its historical coverage--1895 through the present. Reader's Guide Retrospective is a new online fulltext source for the same magazines and journals.

Social Sciences Index
Main Per Index
Social Sciences Index is an easy-to-use print author/subject index to the scholarly literature of the social sciences. Social Sciences Index began in 1907, so it provides access to early twentieth century scholarship.

Sociofile
Library Gateway
Sociofile is a scholarly index for books and journal articles in the field of sociology. Sociofile is international in scope and provides access to 1800 journals published worldwide, dating from 1974 to the present.

Web Sites

Academic Web Sites:

Common-Place: a scholarly website dedicated to early American history
http://www.common-place.org/

Library of Congress, American Memory Home Page
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/

American Society for Environmental History/H-Environment List Website: bibliographies, tables of contents for the journal Environmental History, and links to related environmental history sites.
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~environ/

Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History: a website from the National Humanities Center that looks at the broad sweep of human and natural history in the U.S.
http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/nattrans/nattrans.htm

Forest History Society Home Page
http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/

Environmental History: this website by Carolyn Merchant, a noted environmental historian at the University of California at Berkeley, includes bibliographies and links to other sites.
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/departments/espm/env-hist/

Center for New History and Media, George Mason University: an Internet clearing house for a wide variety of materials about history.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/

Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment: a scholarly organization dedicated to environmental issues and literary studies.
http://www.asle.umn.edu/

Environmental History of Latin America: an on-line bibliography, compiled by Lise Sedrez, a graduate student at Stanford University.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/LAEH/

H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences OnLine
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/

Making of America: Digital Library of Primary Sources: A collection of full-text documents from the 19th century, maintained by the University of Michigan.
www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

West Philadelphia Landscape Project: an amazing project, developed by landscape architect Anne Whiston Sprin, that links the scholarly study of landscape and social change with present-day community activism.
http://web.mit.edu/4.243j/www/wplp/

Government Web Sites:

National Council for Science and the Environment: includes a link to the National Library for the Environment, an on-line catalogue of governmental documents.
http://www.cnie.org/

The National Academies: includes the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council
http://www.nationalacademies.org/

National Marine Fisheries Service
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
http://www.epa.gov/

Advocacy Group Web Sites:

Political Economy Research Center: a think-tank focusing on free-market solutions to environmental problems
http://www.perc.org/

Stop Federal Land Grab and Our Klamath Basin Crisis: two websites illustrating arguments against providing water for salmon in Oregon's Klamath River basin.
http://www.stopfedlandgrab.org/
http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/

Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise: a website supporting the "Wise Use" movement.
http://www.cdfe.org/menu.html

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition: one of the nation's best-known local groups on environmental justice and urban pollution.
http://www.igc.org/svtc/

Military Toxics Project: a Lewiston, Maine organization focusing on the connections between military activities and environmental justice.
http://www.miltoxproj.org/

Environmental Health Coalition: another well-known group focusing on environmental justice issues.
http://www.environmentalhealth.org/index1.html

Environmental Defense Fund
http://www.edf.org/

Earthjustice (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund)
http://www.earthjustice.org/

Government Documents

United States Government Documents are located in a separate collection on the the lower level of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library. A few examples are listed below. To locate specific documents use the online catalog, the index Monthly Catalog of Government Documents, or ask the Government Documents Librarian, Ginny Hopcroft.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Govt Doc Y 1.1/2: Serial Both legislative and executive reports, along with treaties and presidential messages comprise this large set of publications, indexed in Congressional Universe.

A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: US Congressional Documents and Debates
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html
Website from the Library of Congress, offering congressional reports, documents, and debates.

Women's Bureau Bulletins
Children's Bureau Bulletins
Department of Labor
Govt Doc L13.3: There are numerous publications dealing with occupational health within these two series.

Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Dept of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1871-1906
Govt Docs I 20.1 1871-1906
These annual reports include policies, activities, and reports of actions taken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Library Catalog

The electronic library catalog is the primary access point for the collections of the Bowdoin College Libraries in all formats.

Begin your research in the Bowdoin Library Catalog with either a subject search or a keyword search (under heading "word"). Subject searching uses a "controlled" vocabulary, so consult the large red Library of Congress Subject Headings volumes near the reference desk. In either kind of search, take advantage of any additional subject headings you see listed in the bibliographic record.

Examples of useful subject headings for this class:

Environmental Law-United States
United States-Environmental Justice
Environmentalism-Political Aspects-United States
Environmental protection -- United States - History

Additionally, the library catalog is now an access point for searching a new database called Maine Info Net. Using Maine Info Net you can search the catalogs of Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, and the University of Maine system simultaneously, and then perform your own ILL request online for material from any of those libraries. Books will be sent here to the H-L Library Circulation Desk for you to pick up.

Research Strategy

Consult Getting Started: Library Research and Navigation for a helpful summary/refresher of the research process.

Additional tips for research:

1. Use both subject and keyword searching in any electronic database or index, including the library catalog.
2. When you find a relevant record for a book or article, always check the descriptors or subject headings for additional search terms.
3. Read bibliographies and footnotes of books and articles for additional relevant information.
4. For information on primary sources, please read the CBB Guide to Primary and Secondary Sources.
5. Evaluate websites carefully for accuracy, timeliness and authority.
6. Begin research EARLY. Interlibrary loans always take at least a few days; for obtaining specialized items, such as microfilm of old newspapers, several weeks may be necessary.