Contact Your Research Librarian
Getting Started with Research for SPAN308 and SPAN370!
- Need a review of Hekman Library basics? Check out this "Get Connected" guide or browse our How-to playlist on Youtube.
- If you're off-campus, remember to start at the library homepage when connecting to databases and ebooks, so you'll be recognized as a Calvin user (when you're prompted to login, enter your Calvin username and passphrase).
- Struggling with citations? For more help, see the library's longer Citation 101 guide or try using Purdue's OWL (Online Writing Lab)
Special Topic: Primary Sources
Recommended Databases
- Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)
Coverage on a wide range of topics. Includes peer-reviewed full text for STEM research, as well as for the social sciences and humanities.
- MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO)
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. International in scope, it includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations, with links to full text in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other resources.
- Humanities Source (EBSCO)
Humanities Source is a valuable full-text database covering literary, scholarly and creative thought. It provides full text, indexing and abstracts for the most noted scholarly sources in the humanities.
- Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)
Historical Abstracts is the definitive index of literature covering world history (excluding the United States and Canada) from the 15th century to the present. Indexing thousands of journals in over 40 languages, it is an invaluable bibliographic database for history students. Topics include military history, women’s history, history of education, and much more.
- JSTOR
JSTOR is a database consisting of full-text articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals from nearly every discipline taught at Calvin. Coverage for each journal begins with the first volume, with coverage ending for most titles three and five years ago. A growing number of journals now have coverage up to the present.
- Project Muse
Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 600+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.
- ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials (EBSCO)
ATLA is an index of journal articles, essays, and book reviews in the areas of biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religious perspectives on social issues, among other topics. The database provides coverage from 1949 to the present and retrospective indexing for some journals as far back as the nineteenth century.
Recommended Resources for Primary Sources
- Biblioteca Nacional de EspañaThis is the National Spanish Library's website. It includes the information about the library and its contents.
- Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de CervantesThis link contains access to thousands of works including literature, newspaper collections, video library, etc. This website has the aim of providing the best possible service to the wider community of Spanish speakers all over the world.
- DPLA (Digital Public Library of America)A one-stop portal to a wide range of open access materials from many libraries
- EuropeanaAccess to millions of cultural heritage items from institutions across Europe. Discover artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport, and much more.
- Ibero-American Electronic Text SeriesA project devoted to Latin American and Iberian works in the humanities from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
- Internet Medieval SourcebookThe Internet History Sourcebooks Project, a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly for educational use. Primary sources are available here primarily for use in high-school and university/college courses. From the outset the site took a very broad view of the sources that should be available to students and as well as documents long associated with a "western civilization" approach to history also provides much information on Byzantine, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, East Asian, and African history. You will also find many documents especially relevant to women's history and LGBT studies.
- Libro (Library of Iberian Resources Online)The Library of Iberian Resources Online (LIBRO) is a joint project of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain and the University of Central Arkansas. Its task is to make available to users the best scholarship about the peoples and nations of the Iberian peninsula. Consequently, the book list is principally drawn from recent, but out-of-print university press monographs. In addition, the collection includes a number of basic texts and sources in translation. These are presented in full-text format and reproduce all the matter included in the original print version. The collection focuses upon peninsular history from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries.
- Online Medieval Sources BibliographyProvides detailed information about modern editions - both in print and online - of medieval primary sources.
- Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES)El Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES) es la principal plataforma de difusión del Patrimonio Histórico Documental Español, creada y gestionada por la Subdirección General de los Archivos Estatales, del Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte.
Contiene fichas descriptivas e imágenes digitalizadas de los fondos documentales conservados en los Archivos Estatales. Sin embargo, en PARES no figura aún toda la documentación de nuestros archivos, debido al enorme volumen de la misma. Los contenidos de PARES van aumentando a medida que se desarrollan los trabajos archivísticos de identificación, descripción y digitalización de los documentos. - Proyecto Estudios IndianosThe Proyecto Estudios Indianos is an interdisciplinary research group on the American viceroyalties with a global perspective.
- Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage (BVPB)The Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage (BVPB), managed by the General Subdirectorate for Library Coordination under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, is a digital library offering the public access to a valuable and growing collection of digitised facsimiles of manuscripts, printed books, historical photographs, cartographic material, musical scores, and other material that is housed in memory institutions (archives, libraries and museums) and forms part of Spain’s bibliographic heritage.
Guides to Latin American archives and digital collections
Research Resources for SPAN 370
- Benson Latin American CollectionThe Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is one of the premier libraries in the world for Latin America and Latina/o Studies. Resources highlight the heritage of Latin American, U.S. Latinx, African Diasporic, and Indigenous American communities. Special focuses include human rights, colonial documents, visual content, Indigenous languages, and popular culture materials.
- Cambridge Digital LibraryThis wide-ranging digital library contains collections of Jewish and Islamic life and religion, Spanish chapbooks, and copies of the Peruvian magazine, "La Voz del campesiono" as well as a vast array of thousands of other resources.
- Jewish Expulsion from Spain - National Library of IsraelThe National Library of Israel has collected numerous historical materials on the Jewish expulsion from Spain. The rich compilation chronicles and elucidates stories of Sephardic Jews, their extraordinary creativity, their political structures and their community life. The items in the collection shed light on the circumstances of the expulsion, the lives of the Anusim and the challenges faced by Sephardic Jews while assimilating into various communities around the globe. The Library's collection originates from diverse periods and locations. It comprises books and manuscripts, religious and secular literature, prayer books, articles, and studies, as well as poetry and prayer recordings in Ladino.