Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life User Guide
Contents
- Historical Abstracts
- Covers the world's scholarly literature in history. It includes bibliographic citations to books and dissertations, and abstracts of articles from over 2,000 journals on the history of the world (except the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present. The coverage is from 1954 to the present.
- America: History and Life
- Covers the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada from prehistoric times to the present. It contains article abstracts from more than 2,000 journals, as well as bibliographic citations to dissertations and books. The coverage is from 1964 to the present. Both databases are available through the World Wide Web..
How to Access AHL and HA
The URL for the two databases is: http://0-serials.abc-clio.com.sculib.scu.edu/
From the Library home page you can also click on Electronic Databases A-Z and select the one you want.
How to Search:
You can search each database by keywords, subject terms, author, title, journal name, document type, language, publication date and time period.
Keyword Search:
Entering words in the keyword box results in a broad free-text search of the database. You can enter a word or a phrase, and you can combine concepts using the operators and (to narrow a search), or (to broaden a concept), and not (to exclude a concept).
Examples:
- California and immigration. (Both terms need to appear somewhere in the record. A space between words is the same as typing and )
- Women Abolitionists
- French Revolution. (Retrieve all articles with the phrase French Revolution)
- China or Chinese. (Retrieve articles including either term)
- Terrorism and not hijacking. (Any article on terrorism that mentions hijacking will be excluded)
- Social reform* (The * is the truncation symbol. The search results will include various endings of the word such as reformer, reformist, etc.)
Subject Terms Search:
Subject terms are subject headings used to describe each record in the database. They are particularly useful when an article covers subjects not mentioned by name in the title or abstract. You can browse the index which contains all the subject terms by clicking on the small magnifying glass next to the Subject Terms search box (in advanced search mode.) . Select the term you want and click on paste terms to add the term to your search.
Time Period Field:
Use the Time Period field to narrow your search to a particular century or decade. Enter one or more round-number dates followed by a H (for hundred or century) or a D (for decade). Just keep in mind that you define the search by century or decade and that you cannot search for a single year or a range of years.
Examples:
- 1800H (for entries dealing with the 19th century)
- 1820D or 1830D (for entries dealing with the 1820's and the 1830's)
Language Field:
Remember that articles are abstracted from journals published in over 50 languages. If you don't read any foreign languages, enter English in the language field. If you read Spanish for example, you can enter: English or Spanish.
How To Display the Results of Your Search:
Once your search is completed, the program displays a list of your results in short format. To display the complete record, including a summary of the article or the book, click on Display Full Entry.
How to Print or Download:
As you view the records, you may select the ones you want to print by clicking in the "tagged" box.
To Print:
- Click on Output Options (left side of the screen)
- Select the format (short or full entry) and the range (all entries, tagged entries) you want. Notice that you can also e-mail the results.
- Click on Submit, then click on the Netscape Print button.
To Download:
Follow steps 1 to 3 above. Pull down the file menu, and choose Save as.
CLIO Notes
The CLIO Notes provide concise overviews of significant events and themes in American history, as well as detaIled chronologies and bibliographies.
This page is maintained by Helene Lafrance, Santa Clara University.
Last updated on 09/21/01