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America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts

Contents & Access | Searching | Display | Exporting Results | Further Assistance

Contents and Access

What does this database contain?
America: History and Life selectively indexes and abstracts articles on U. S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, includes citations from more than 2,000 journals published worldwide. Also includes citations of book and media reviews from a selection of over one hundred key journals in the field.

Historical Abstracts selectively indexes and abstracts articles relating to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life). Published since 1954, includes citations from more than 2,000 journals published worldwide. Also includes citations to useful historical books as reviewed by journals in the field.

Where do I access this database?
Through the UTSA Library web page (http://www.lib.utsa.edu) under Databases & Article Searching > A - Z

Available off-campus?
Yes, to UTSA faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. 

Full Text of articles available online?
No, the databases only provide a citation and abstract for each entry.  Check eJournal Locator to see if UTSA has electronic access to the journal or UCAT to see if UTSA owns the print journal or book. There is some linking to full text in other databases.

Language of articles?
All languages represented.

What is the date coverage of citations?
America: History and Life database coverage of citations and abstracts are from 1964 to present.
Historical Abstracts database coverage of citations and abstracts are from 1954 to present.

List of publications included in each database?
You can browse through an alphabetical list of journals in each database by clicking on the "Journal List" link at the top of the search screen .

Searching

Basic search terms?
The boolean operators AND (all terms must be present), OR (at least one of the terms must be present), and NOT (term is not present) can be used in all search fields.

How do I search for a name?
The Subject Terms search field allows you to search for a name. Click on the book icon to select a search term.

What major fields are available for searching?

Keywords - This field allows free text searching of terms in the abstract, title, subject terms, translation, documentation, and author/editor fields using boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT).

Subject Terms - This field allows you to search for subjects or specific concepts.  Subject terms may be entered with or without quotation marks (Example: "Civil War").
Use the book browse button for a list of subject headings.

Author/Editor - This field allows you to search for authors/editors that appear in cited articles, dissertations, book and media reviews.
Use the magnifying glass browse button for a list of authors/editors.

Title/Translation - This field allows you to search for the title/translation of a article, dissertation, or book review if known.

Language - This field allows you to search for a particular language of a book review, article, or dissertation.
Use the open book browse icon for a list of languages.

Document Type - This field allows you to search for a particular document type represented in journal articles, collections, dissertations, book and media reviews.
Use the open book browse icon for a list of document types.

Journal Name - This field allows you to search in a particular scholarly journal.  America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts cites articles in over 1,800 scholarly journals.
Use the open book browse icon for a list of the journals cited in each database.

Publication Date - This field allows you to limit your search results to a particular publication date.  There are three ways to perform a search by exact year (1980), range of years (1980-1983), or open-ended (1980-).

Time Period - This field allows you to limit your search results by a particular decade or century.
Use the open book browse icon for a list of decades and centuries.

Entry Number - This field allows you to search for entry numbers that correspond to the printed versions of America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts. Example: 30:1534 retrieves retrieves volume 30, entry 1534.

Is there a thesaurus or subject/term list?
The Subject Terms, Author/Editor, Language, Document Type, Journal Name, and Time Period search fields have links that include a browsable index.

How do I make a phrase?
Include the phrase within double quotes.  The default boolean operator is AND. Example: "George Washington"

How do I limit by Date?
Use the Publication Date field to narrow your search by the date of a book review, journal article or dissertation was published.  Searches on the publication date can be done several ways.  By exact publication date (e.g., 1990 retrieves all entries published in that year); search a range of years (e.g., 1988-1990 retrieves all entries published in 1988, 1989, and 1990); or search with an open-ended date (e.g., 1980- retrieves all entries published since 1991).

Use the Period field to narrow your search to a particular decade or century.  You can define your search by hundreds (1900H retrieve entries published in the 1900's) or decades (1860D retrieve entries published in the 1860's).

Truncation and Wildcards?
Use the asterisk (*) to automatically retrieve most plural and possessive forms of words.  For example, the search drug* retrieves any record containing "drug", "drugs", "drugging", "drug-related", etc.

You can use the wildcard symbol (?) as a substitute for one character or none. For example, the search m?cdonald retrieves records containing "McDonald" or "MacDonald".

Can I review my past searches?
The Current Results button displays the current set of search results.

Display

How do I display my search results?
After executing a search, you can view the short or full entry display search results.  The short entry screen is the default.

How do I sort my results?
In order to sort records, you must click on Display Options before executing your search.
Sorting options are Ascending, Descending, Author, Date, Journal, Language, Type.

Special Features?
Each database gives you the option to Tag (mark) each record you are interested in.

Printing, Downloading, E-mailing

How do I print?
To print your citations, click on Export Options link at the bottom of the results page.  Select Full or Short Entry; Current Results or Personal List (items tagged). Click Export Records and Display to display results. Click browser print button.

Can I download or save the list?
From the search results screen, click on the Output Options button.  Select Full or Short Entry; Current Results or Personal List (items tagged). However, leave ASCII as the default Output type and click on submit.  From the file menu choose save as and select where to save the file (if you are using a public workstation, type a:\myfile.txt  (save as a text document not as HTML).  The entries you selected will be downloaded to your computer.

Can I e-mail an article to myself?
Yes.  Click on the Export Options link at the bottom of the results page. Fill in email address(es) and click Send. The records you selected will be sent to the address you provide.

Help

Where do I go for more help?
Feel free to ask at the Reference Desk or contact us for more assistance: (210)458-4573 or 2446.  Online help screens are also available in each database.

What other databases/indexes would give me more information like this?
JSTOR, Project Muse, ProQuest
See also: Primary Sources