Contact UsResearching the American South: Articles and Books
Finding Books
Start with a simple keyword search in the library catalog to identify one or more relevant books. Once you have located a relevant item, you can look at the item's Library of Congress Subject Headings within the item's full record tab and follow the subject heading links in the catalog to find other, similar or related books.
You can also refine your results by using the facets on the left side of the screen to narrow down by format, language, or additional subject headings.
Try out these keywords and subject headings:
- Keyword: American South
- Associated subject heading: Southern states
- Associated subject heading: Southern states -- history
- Associated subject heading: Southern states -- race relations
- Keyword: North Carolina
- Associated subject heading: North Carolina -- History
- Associated subject heading: North Carolina -- Archival resources
- These subject headings will work for any state, such as South Carolina or Georgia
- Keyword: Southern Authors
- Associated subject heading: Authors, American -- Southern states
- Keyword: Southern women
- Associated subject heading: Women -- Southern states
Bibliographies
Bibliographies lists books, articles, and other sources, so they can save a researcher time. To identify bibliographies, and even better, bibliographies of bibliographies, use broad-ranging, general guides to primary and secondary sources, such as the following:
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The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical LiteratureCall Number: Davis Library Reference Desk Z6201 .A55 1995
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Reader's Guide to American HistoryCall Number: Davis Library E178 .R433 1997
Law Library Stacks Z1236 .R43 1997 -
The American South: A Historical BibliographyCall Number: Davis Library F209 .A45 1985
North Carolina Collection Reading Room CR016.97 A51b v.1-2 -
The Harvard Guide to African-American HistoryCall Number: Davis Library Reference Desk E185 .H326 2001
Stone Center Library Reference E185 .H326 2001 c. 3 -
United States History: A Multicultural, Interdisciplinary Guide to Information SourcesCall Number: Davis Reference Desk E178 .P477 2003
You can also find bibliographies in the catalog, for example: North Carolina labor bibliography
Finding Articles
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America, History and LifeAn index for North American history consisting of journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations and book reviews. You can search by "American South" or by "United States" and South, for instance.
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MLA International Bibliography Plus Full TextA major index for literary criticism, linguistics, folklore and cultural studies. Many Southern writers are included.
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Sociological AbstractsSociological Abstracts provides access to the world's literature in sociology and related disciplines, both theoretical and applied. Approximately 2500 journals in 30 different languages from about 55 countries are covered. You can search on "American South" and families, for example.
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Black Studies CenterBlack Studies Center is the major indexing and full-text database for African-American studies.
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Articles PlusArticles+ searches most of the UNC library databases. A powerful tool, but it can provide an overwhelming number of results. Try using specific search terms and using the facets on the left-hand side of the results page to narrow results to peer-reviewed articles from scholarly publications for the best results.
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Other U. S History DatabasesIncludes other article and full text databases relevant for the study of the American South.
Article Searching Tips
When searching in databases, try these handy tips for better results:
- Use wildcard characters. If searching for economic conditions, type the word econ* with an asterick. That will return economies, economic, economist and any word that starts with econ.
- Use quotes. When searching for two words, quotes will search for the words when they're next to each other. Thomas Jefferson will return articles with Thomas Payne and Jefferson Starship. But when "Thomas Jefferson" is searched, only those articles with his name will be returned.
Using Find@UNC
If an article search comes back that we don't have an item:
1) Click the 
button
2) If available, click an article link, if not, click the journal link
3) If not available online, then Search the UNC Libraries' catalog by Title/ISSN to see if we have the journal in print.
4) If none are available, click the request via interlibrary loan link