This post is part of a series of “Resources and Services” posts from the Faculty of Cowles Library.
Historical Abstracts is one of the many databases the Drake community has access to through Cowles Library. If you are looking for research articles on non-American history, this should be one of your first stops.
Doing historical research of Canada or the United States? You should check out America: History and Life.
Looking for articles on the history of anywhere else in the world? You should use Historical Abstracts. Historical Abstracts indexes and gives abstracts for over 2000 journals. It includes key historical journals from almost every major country as well as a great selection of journals in the social sciences and humanities that are of interest to researchers of history.
A few questions I’ve heard over the years from users of this resource:
Q: What is an Abstract?
A: An abstract is a summary of an article. Historical Abstracts gives summaries and index terms to the articles in its database. Users can read the abstracts to see if the article is something they are interested in.
Q: Why isn’t there full-text available for all of the articles I find in this database?
A: That’s a long story, mostly it’s because of expense. We can get you any article you find in the database. If there isn’t full text, click on Check for Full Text @ Drake . This may lead you to the full text article. If it does not, it will lead you to Interlibrary Loan.
Q: What is Interlibrary Loan?
A: We have another library send us a copy of the article for you. For more information go to Interlibrary Loan
Any questions about using Historical Abstracts? Just ask!