American History Research Guide

Type in keywords to find books related to your topic. Use quotation marks to search a phrase (ex: "Civil War"). Books may be available in print or online format.

You can also search for primary sources in our catalog. For example, if you want to find a diary of a historical figure or from a certain time period, you could try "diary" and "Civil War."  

This flow chart is to help you evaluate the scholarly quality of books you find for your research. Since books are not always peer-reviewed like scholarly journal articles, there are certain questions you can ask yourself when trying to decide if a book is credible for your research.