Archives
- ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new windowIndexes almost a million descriptions of archival collections held by more than 2,500 libraries, museums, historical societies and archives worldwide. The detailed, archival collection descriptions have been written by archivists. Subject strengths include history, humanities, art, social sciences, and genealogy. Search results include the title of the collection, holding institution, brief description, and a link to an extended description.
- Internet Archive"Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more."
- Online Archive of CaliforniaYou can search OAC on your topic. For example, China, the Cultural Revolution, etc.
"The Online Archive of California (OAC) provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses." - Hoover Institution Library and Archives"The Hoover Institution Library & Archives are dedicated to documenting war, revolution, and peace in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (It offers) nearly one million volumes and more than six thousand archival collections from 171 countries."
- The Wilson Center Digital Archive"The Digital Archive contains once-secret documents from governments all across the globe...The Digital Archive is overseen by the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program and focuses on the interrelated histories of the Cold War, Korea, and Nuclear Proliferation."
- The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum"Richard Nixon’s Presidency is one of the most exhaustively documented administrations in American history. The Nixon Presidential Materials Collection contains approximately 46 million pages of documents, 3,700 hours of recorded Presidential conversations known as the “White House Tapes”, 4,000 separate recordings of broadcast video" as well as audio recordings, photographs, films, and State and Public Gifts.
HIST 490T: Research Goals | Strategies
Research Goals
1) Explore your research interests and topics, including contexts and related topics
2) Map out helpful resources for your topic
3) Gain familiarity with databases, archives, digital collections, search engines/discovery tools, and finding aids
4) Develop research strategies and techniques
5) Critically read, interpret, analyze, and synthesize information sources
6) Ask further questions
Analyze Research Topics-- From Dr. Lisa Tran: "STEP 1: Topic"
[1. Identify a topic on contemporary China that you are interested in exploring for your research project. Provide details about the subject, timeframe, location, and specific aspect to be explored. Given the theme of this course, your topic must focus on China in the period after 1949. China is broadly defined as including the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas communities of people who identify as Chinese.
2. Pose at least 1 question that is historically significant and has no clear-cut answer that you are interested in weighing in on.
3. List people, groups, organizations, countries, places, concepts, issues, events, developments, themes, and any other details related to your topic.
Analyze Secondary Sources-- From Dr. Lisa Tran
1. Locate a secondary research source
2. Read the scholarly work you located. Pay attention to the approaches the author uses, the questions that the author poses about the topic, the answers offered, and the primary sources used to support these answers. Draw from your selected scholarly work to answer the questions below:
What is the author’s methodology (approach)?
What is the author’s research question?
What is the author’s thesis?
What evidence (primary sources) does the author use?
How do the sources that the author uses frame the author’s analysis of the topic?
3. Situate the work within the broader historiographical context by answering the following questions:
How does the author relate her or his study to previous scholarship?
In which fields does the author situate the topic?
What have been the explanations of the topic in those fields?
How does the author categorize and characterize those explanations? Pay attention to how the author organizes the works discussed, and what the author praises and criticizes in the works of others.
How does the author elaborate, revise, or debunk claims made by other scholars writing on the same topic? Note what the author accepts and what the author questions or refutes.
What gaps or distortions does the author note in previous scholarship?
How does the author’s work aim to address those gaps or distortions?
What does the author highlight as distinctive, unique, or innovative about her or his work?
How does the author’s work contribute to the way that scholars understand your topic in the fields identified earlier?
Approaches to Analyze a Research Topic & Create Search Statements
1. What is your topic?
Write down words, phrases, ideas, concepts, or questions. Consider this brainstorming. And watch how it evolves as your research grows.
2. General/Specific
Is the topic too general? What words/concepts would be more specific?
3. Broad/Narrow
Is your topic too broad?
How can you narrow down your topic so it is more focused?
4. Clarity
Are the words in the topic vague or clear? What words would be more clear?
5. Break down complex topics
If your topic is complex and convoluted, break down the topic into several smaller topic areas.
Digital Collections | Finding Aids
- Chinese Foreign Policy DatabasePart of the Wilson Center Digital Archive. "The Chinese Foreign Policy Database enhances the ability of contemporary observers and historians to gain broader perspectives on Chinese policies. Curating 1000s of documents from Chinese and international archives, it offers insights into China’s foreign policy since 1949 and its relationship to ideology, revolution, the economy, and traditional Chinese culture."
- Chinese Communism ArchivePart of Marxist Internet Archive.
- The "Great Debate"- Documents on the Sino-Soviet SplitPart of Marxist Internet Archive.
- Finding Aid for the China Democracy Movement and Tiananmen Incident Archives, 1989-1993From UCLA Library Special Collections.
- Chinese Poster ArtFrom the East Asian Library, UC Berkeley.
- Chinese Propaganda Posters"The posters on this website are from the collections of Stefan Landsberger (Leiden University, University of Amsterdam), the International Institute of Social History (IISH, Amsterdam, Netherlands), and a private collector who prefers not to be named. Together these collections consist of over 7,000 posters."
- Chinese Pamphlets"Mass education materials published in Hong Kong and in Mainland China, particularly Shanghai, in the years 1947-1954. These cartoon books, pamphlets, postcards and magazines, on topics such as foreign threats to Chinese security, Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, industrial and agricultural production, and marriage reform, were produced by both Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Gongchantang (Communist) supporters."
- American Folk Life Center Collections: China"This guide provides access to ethnographic resources documenting Chinese expressive culture in China and the United States in the collections of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress."
- Chinese Exclusion Act: Primary Sources in American History@Library of Congress.
- Historical Maps of China@ University of Texas Austin Libraries
Research Guides | Collections
New Media: Website, Blog, Twitter, etc.
- U.S.-China Perception MonitorThe website is a not-for-profit operated by the China Focus of the Carter Center. "We invite a range of American and Chinese experts, journalists, and students to write for the website to better understand how developments in the bilateral relationship are interpreted and perceived among different actors and special interest groups."
- China Digital Times"China Digital Times (CDT) is an independent, bilingual media organization that brings uncensored news and online voices from China to the world. We introduce the perspectives of Chinese netizens; archive content that has been or is in danger of being censored in China; and, through translation, make these voices accessible to the world. CDT’s companion site, China Digital Space, is a comprehensive, bilingual guide to online political discourse, state censorship practices, news events, and public opinion in Chinese cyberspace."
- The China Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012"Launched in early 2008, The China Beat provides context and criticism on contemporary China from China scholars and journalists....the blog draws on a global group of China watchers in the U.S., China, the U.K., Australia, Japan, Canada, Taiwan, and many other locations."
News Sources-- China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and more
- Beijing ReviewAvailable, dates varying, in CSUF Subscription Databases.
- Peking (Beijing) Review 1958-2006Part of the Marxist Internet Archive
- South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)Available in CSUF subscription databases. Dates vary.