What is a secondary source?
Secondary sources are usually books and journal articles that are interpretations of events written after examining primary source materials. They can also be found in a variety of mediums.
Image is shared with the CC BY-NC 2.0 license.
Users can search the University Library's catalog for holdings of print books. While high school students will not have borrowing privileges unless they are enrolled in college courses, they can still visit the campus libraries and read materials on site.
Research Guide for Interpreting Secondary Sources
University Library History Databases
Below are subscription databases that the Georgia State University Library can provide access to during the Research Round-up Day event. This is not an exhaustive list, but it highlights some of the databases that may be most helpful. Additionally, high school students can visit any of the University Library's six campus locations to access these resources, but will be subject to Georgia State University Library's visitor and access policies.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
An online collection of of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Use the search box at the top of the screen to search all of the resources or use the subject links on the left-hand side to search specific works in the collection.
America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
This index covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Direct Opt Out Link
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Historical Abstracts covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. The database indexes more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955.
History Reference Center This link opens in a new window
A history reference database featuring the full text for leading history periodicals, reference books, encyclopedias, and nonfiction books as well as thousands of historical documents, biographies of historical figures, historical photos and maps, and video.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. It offers an interdisciplinary journal archive across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The archive offers an interlinked aggregation of scholarly works as well as long-term preservation.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
A portal for slavery studies offering primary source documents and secondary sources (an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology, and bibliography) allowing for exploration and comparison of material related to slavery, abolition, and social justice.
Note: If you are working on a history project on a pre-1450 topic, the following databases are going to be the most useful for you:
Academic Search Complete provides complete coverage of multidisciplinary academic journals. The collection includes peer-reviewed journals, full-text periodicals, reports, and books, for STM research, the Social Sciences, Humanities, and other areas of academic studies. PDF content dates back as far as 1887.
Ancient and Medieval History Online This link opens in a new window
Provides thousands of entries covering prehistory through the 1500s in ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient and medieval Africa, medieval Europe, the Americas, and ancient and medieval Asia.
<< Previous: Primary Source Research