Subject Guides
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Conducting Archives Research: A Subject Guide

Archival materials enhance research by providing the support of primary sources. What is a primary source? This is simply an original document, such as a manuscript, journal, diary, typescript or other material directly created by a given organization or individual. Original documents can add an element of interest and authority to research. In research for Masters Theses or Dissertations, they are nearly essential.

The University of South Dakota's Archives and Special Collections primarily contain information about the history of USD, Native American History, Western and Plains History and the history of South Dakota. Archival materials are divided into three primary collections:

For a more thorough description of collections, see the Archives and Special Collections home page at http://www.usd.edu/library/special. Researchers should work with the staff at the Archives and Special Collections for reference questions about any of these collections. Contact us at speccoll@usd.edu.

Archival materials are also available in collections in institutions throughout the country. The goal of this bibliography is to provide information about archives and their collections, and to provide a starting point for research using primary sources. This list is not comprehensive by any means. There are many more descriptions of collections available, both in the I.D. Weeks Library and through other sources. Please see a reference librarian, or contact the Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the University of South Dakota (speccoll@usd.edu) for assistance with your reference questions.


Table of Contents

Print
Reference Materials
Journals
Research Databases
Plains and South Dakota Collections
World Wide Web Resources
Online Exhibits

Print

Reference Materials

25 Years: Special Collections at Kent State University
3RD FLOOR Z733.K34 A14 1993
This slim volume contains a history of the Kent State University Special Collections area, as well as a listing of selected materials from the collections. Organized by subject area.

Archives and Manuscripts Collections of the Center for Western Studies
3RD FLOOR LD271.A664 T46x 1984
Describes the major collections in the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Provides series descriptions, size of the collection and a brief description for each collection. Includes a general subject index.

Card catalog of the Manuscript Collections of the Archives of American Art. Supplement 1981-1984
3RD FLOOR N6505 .A72 suppl. 1981-84 
Provides images of each card for the collections in the Archives of American Art in Detroit, Michigan. This is a bound card catalog. Cards provide some description of collections and indicate restricted collections.

Directory of Manuscript Collections Related to Federal Judges, 1789-1997
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR KF8744 .W65 1998 
This alphabetical listing of judges provides basic information about each individual's collected papers. Each item provides the dates for the judge, courts served and service dates, and the repositories where the judge's papers are located. There is a brief description of the extent and content of the collection.

Guide to Manuscripts in the Presidential Libraries 
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR CD3029.82 .B87 1985
Provides a description of collections in seven presidential libraries. Gives collection-specific reference information, name, date and size of collection, and a brief description of its contents. Includes the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) number and the presidential library in which the collection appears. Indexed by subject, title and individual.

Guide to Native American Ledger Drawings and Pictographs in United States Museums, Libraries, and Archives
3RD FLOOR E98.A7 L68 1998 
Provides a listing of collections of ledger drawings made by Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. The listing is arranged by state and by institution and includes an annotated bibliography and an index.

Guide to Research Collections of Former Members of the United States House of Representatives, 1789-1987
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR CD3043 .G85 1988
3RD FLOOR CD3043 .G85 1988
This alphabetical listing of each House member includes the name, dates, state and institutions where the collections are located. There is a very brief description of the holdings of each collection, as well as a list of representatives the whereabouts of whose papers are unknown.

Guide to Research Collections of Former United States Senators, 1789-1995
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR CD3043 .P39 1995
Includes an alphabetical listing by Senator's name which includes the dates, state, dates of service, party and location of collections. There is a brief description of collection holding for each. Also includes a list of senators for whom no collections have been located, and a listing of repositories alphabetically and by state.

Guide to selected Manuscripts housed in the Division of Special Collections and Archives, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky
3RD FLOOR CD3259.L68 U53 1988 
Provides an alphabetical listing of manuscript collections, including the size of each collection, and a brief description of each. Includes an alphabetical index.

Guide to the Manuscript Collections at the University of Alaska, Anchorage
3RD FLOOR Z6621.U6586 W35 1990 
Provides information on manuscript collections, including size, description and acquisition information. Organized alphabetically.

Guide to the Smithsonian Archives
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR Q11 .S55 1996
This work is arranged in two major sections, "Records of the Smithsonian Institution" and "Special Collections." Each section is organized alphabetically by collection, with entries providing a description of the scope and content of the collection, the size of the collection and notes on the collection's arrangement. The indexes are thorough and helpful, and include indexes by format of the items (books, videotapes, audiotapes, etc) and by discipline, an index with date spans of the collections and page references for record units.

Immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland: a Guide to Archival and Manuscript sources in North America
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR E184.B7 W43 1986
Provides entries for United States repositories which have information on immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland. Organized by state and alphabetically by repository within each state. Each entry for the repository includes the name, address, hours, access restrictions and a brief description of the resources in the repository.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR Z663.74 .A43 
This is the paper version of the online database available at http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/. The volumes are catalogs by year, and then organized by accession number within each year. Entries for manuscript collections include the size, location and a brief description for each collection. An Alphabetical index volume is organized by Library of Congress Subject Headings and covers multiple years.

Women's History Sources: a Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States
REFERENCE 1ST FLOOR HQ 1410 .H55x 
This volume lists resources alphabetically by state and city. Within each city, it identifies specific collections related to women's history, and includes information about the collection size, location and description. An index volume identifies the collections by names of individuals or organizations.

Journals

Note: Some of these journals are specific to Archives, but many are history journals. History journals often contain articles about specific archival collections.

American Archivist. v. 1- Jan. 1938-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

American Heritage. v. 1-3, no. 2, Jan./Feb. 1947-Apr. 1949; new ser., v. 1- Sept. 1949-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 
CHILSON COLLECTION E171 .A43 (holdings incomplete) 

American West. v. 1- winter 1964- Ceased with v. 28, no. 4 [i.e. v. 27, no. 4] (fall 1990).
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

American Historical Review. v. 1- Oct. 1895-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

American History. Vol. 29, no. 2 (June 1994)-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

Annals of Iowa. v. [1]-12, 1863-74; new ser., v. 1-3, 1882-84; 3d ser., v. 1- Apr. 1893-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

Annals of Wyoming (1925). Vol. 3, no. 1 (July 1925)-v. 9, no. 4 (Apr. 1933-Jan. 1935).
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS 

Civilization : the Magazine of the Library of Congress. Vol. 1, no. 1 (Nov.-Dec. 1994)-
CURRENT PERIODICALS 2ND FLOOR 
2ND FLOOR BOUND PERIODICALS

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Research Databases

Though research databases will not generally provide primary documents, they may provide articles about archive collections or about the primary sources themselves.

Academic Search Elite
Provides full text for over 1,230 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, and more.

America: History and Life
America: History and Life includes citations on history, culture and current affairs of the United States and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.

Expanded Academic ASAP
Use this database to find information on: Astronomy, Religion, Law, History, Psychology, Humanities, Current Events, Sociology, Communications and the General Sciences. It also contains full-text for over 750 titles

Humanities Abstracts
Humanities Abstracts indexes periodicals in archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, journalism, linguistics, music, the performing arts, philosophy, religion, world history, and world literature. Full-text is now available for approximately 100 titles.

JSTOR
Contains extensive back files of full-text articles from major scholarly journals, many of which go back to 1800s. Use JSTOR to find information on: general science, social sciences, humanities, and business. The most recent 2-5 years of the published materials are not available in this database.

WorldCat
Records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century.

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Selected Plains and South Dakota Archives and Historical Collections

Most Universities and historical societies have some kind of web presence. Many of these list their collections, and some provide finding aids or inventories. The following is a list of collections primarily in South Dakota, but also in neighboring states, which collect history of the Plains.

America’s Shrine to Music Museum at the University of South Dakota:
http://www.usd.edu/smm/collect.html
Provides extensive information about musical instruments in the collection, including annotated checklists, descriptive content and images.

Augustana College Center for Western Studies:
http://inst.augie.edu/CWS/#collections
The collections at Augustana College include books, manuscripts, photographs, artifacts and art, primarily concerning the history of South Dakota and the Western Frontier.

Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections at the University of North Dakota:
http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/library/Collections/spk.html
This archives provides collections on Northern Plains History and North Dakota. Includes an extensive Family History and Genealogy section as well as state documents, a University archives and a book collection.

Karl E. Mundt Historical and Educational Foundation and Archives at Dakota State University:
http://www.departments.dsu.edu/library/archive/default.htm
Holdings include over 15,000 items; including 500 films, 100 tapes, 200 slides, 100 scrapbooks and 2500 photographs from Senator Mundt's personal and political life.

South Dakota Oral History Center at the University of South Dakota:
http://www.usd.edu/iais/oralhist/index.html
The center houses one of the largest collections of recorded oral history, with over 5,200 interviews. Recorded as a part of the South Dakota Oral History Project and the American Indian Research Project, the recordings provide historical background of Indian and non-Indian history of the Plains, specifically from the 1860’s through the late 1940’s.

South Dakota State Archives at the South Dakota State Historical Society:
http://www.state.sd.us/deca/cultural/archives.htm
Collects all materials related to the history of South Dakota including government documents, personal papers and manuscript collections, photographs, maps, and audio visual materials. An excellent resource for genealogists.

South Dakota State University Archives/Special Collections:
http://www.sdstate.edu/li11/http/arch.html
This collection is comprised of the SDSU Archives, as well as materials related to South Dakota history and life. Materials held include manuscript and archival materials, serials, audiovisual materials and photographs. Site provides many online finding aids and container lists.

University of Nebraska Archives and Special Collections:
http://www.unl.edu/libr/libs/spec/specar1.html
Collecting Areas include Agriculture; Ethnic American Collections; Folklore and Folk Arts; French Revolutionary War Materials; Great Plains History and Literature; History of U.S. Wartime or Military History; Natural History and the Sciences; Railroads (U.S.); Russian History; Social Sciences and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Archives.

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World Wide Web Resources

American Heritage Visual Archive: EAD Encoded Finding Aids Online
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/amher/browse.html
EAD, or Encoded Archival Description, is a set of standards which enable institutions to create finding aids which can easily be mounted to the web, This site provides links to institutions that have mounted selected finding aids to the web, including a link to EAD finding Aids at the Library of Congress.

Encoded Archival Description Sites on the Web
http://lcweb.loc.gov/ead/eadsites.html
Though this has a number of links to materials for archivists, this page primarily contains a number of sites that implement Encoded Archival Description standards and present finding aids for their collections online. This is one of the most thorough listing of sites available.

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
http://www.nara.gov/
NARA's site is good starting place for all kinds of archives research. Their "Research Room" provides information on Genealogy, federal documents and much more. Online exhibits enhance the site, and the site provides search capability.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/
Provides an online, searchable version of the National Union Catalog, listing manuscript collections. Individual records include descriptions of the collection, location of the collection, online access if available, and other information. The website also offers links to many other archival research resources both for professional archivists and for the researcher.

Online Archives of California
http://sunsite2.Berkeley.EDU/oac/
This collaborative effort creates a searchable, online union database of finding aids available via the University of California. Also provides links to other resources and repositories.

Ready, Net, Go!
http://www.tulane.edu/~lmiller/ArchivesResources.html
This online set of resources for archivists includes a master list of archives and holdings. A "meta-index," it includes search tools and tools for archivists.

Seely G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton Library: Collections and finding Aids http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/collections.html
This collection specializes in Princeton University records as well as public policy papers for 20th century public figures in American Foreign Policy. An alphabetical listing of collections is available, and some of these have online finding aids.

Selected Finding Aids for Archival Holdings at NARA's Regional Records Services Facilities
http://www.nara.gov/regional/findaids/findaids.html
This page provides a link to the National Archives and Records Administration home page, as well as links to finding aids in several regional records facilities.

UNESCO Archives Portal 
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_archives/index.html 
Provides links to Archives worldwide, including primary sources and finding aids on line, preservation and conservation information, associations and much more. The portal is searchable by key word.

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Online Exhibits

Camping with the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fletcher/fletcher.htm
This online exhibit includes full text entries from two journals that Alice Cunningham Fletcher kept during a six week stay with the Sioux in 1881. Drawings from the journals accompany the text, as well as photographic images from the National Archives and Fletcher's papers.
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Compiled by Amy Cooper
Send comments to alcooper@usd.edu

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