Our library subscribes to many databases that provide citations, abstracts, and sometimes links to full-text articles. This page identifies useful databases to which the library subscribes.
Articles related to Christopher Columbus will be found in a variety of different databases (i.e. history, sociology, anthropology, education) so you mustn't limit yourself to a single database while searching. Consider using the variant spellings of Columbus' name and adding words such as 'rethinking' or 'reconsidering', and limiting your search to materials that have been published in the last 10-15 years.
Using a database available through the Claire T. Carney Library, rather than a regular search engine, means that you will have results that are found in peer-reviewed and vetted rather than having to dig through the millions of miscellaneous results you will get with a general internet search.
Our library subscribes to many databases that provide citations, abstracts, and sometimes links to full-text articles, the following are some of the ones you may want to check:
This is a library tutorial on understanding citations found in searches of online databases and bibliographies.
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Understanding Citations TutorialTutorial: Reading Citations in an Online Database Self Assessment: Reading Citations |
Here are some suggested journal articles that discuss the rethinking of Columbus and his 'discovery' of America:
JSTOR stands for Journal Storage. It is an electronic archive of older issues of some important academic journals. Some faculty members like to search it by topic because of the convenience of the full text.
I do not recommend searching JSTOR by subject unless you are looking for a very specific unusual word or phrase you can find no where else! Why:
1. Nothing in JSTOR is current. It is journal storage. There is a delay of at least three--and usually five--years between journal publication and inclusion in JSTOR.
2. It is a key word only search. There is no subject searching. If you search for your word or phrase in the title and the author used another word or phrase, the article will not appear.
3. Searches yield too many hits, many of them irrelevant. Do you really want to look through 600 or more articles for a few useful ones? Scholars can go through large searches and identify the few relevant articles relatively quickly because they are already very familiar with the subject. Students cannot.
Use a more specific database to identify articles. Use the Journal Locator to determine if we own the article: the Journal Locator includes the journals in JSTOR.
