LibGuides: History: Secondary Sources

Secondary Sources add a layer of interpretation and analysis to primary sources, and are usually written after the time period being examined. Secondary sources can be:

Scholarly books and eBooks
Journal articles
Documentaries
Reports
Reviews
Conference proceedings
Reliable websites

Primary sources are original sources of information, typically created at the time of the events or individual being researched.

Secondary Source Databases

Bridget Williams Books New Zealand History Collection
A collection of ebooks covering topics in New Zealand history, including key texts on the Treaty of Waitangi, from Bridget Williams Books (BWB), an award-winning New Zealand publisher.
Brill Online Books and Journals
Access full-text e-books in the following humanities and social sciences collections: Asian Studies; Biblical Studies, Ancient Near East and Early Christianity; Classical Studies; European History and Culture; Middle East and Islamic Studies; Religious Studies, Theology and Philosophy; and Social Sciences.
Cambridge Core
The Cambridge Core platform includes Cambridge Books Online, Cambridge Companions Online, Cambridge Journals Online, Cambridge Histories Online, Shakespeare Survey Online and University Publishing Online platforms.
findNZarticles
Provides access to New Zealand content, including material by or about New Zealanders, from a range of New Zealand newspapers and journals.
History (Alexander Street)
A video collection of documentaries, commercial and governmental newsreels, public affairs and archival footage, and much more to facilitate research and teaching in a comparative, transnational, and thematic way. Search across the following collections: American History in Video, American, Dutch, French, and Japanese Newsreels in Video, March of Time, World Newsreels Online: 1929–1966 and World History in Video.
Humanities International Complete (EBSCOhost)
Provides full-text of journals, books and other published sources from around the world. This database includes all data from Humanities International Index plus unique full-text content.
Informit Complete
Provides access to core research from Australia, New Zealand, and the wider Asia Pacific region. Key subject areas include: health, engineering, business, education, law, humanities and social sciences.
International Medieval Bibliography (IMB)
A multidisciplinary bibliographic database covering Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for the entire period from AD 300 to 1500. It aims to provide a comprehensive, current bibliography of articles in journals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections or Festschriften) published worldwide in over 35 different languages.
Internet Archive Scholar
This fulltext search index includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and pre-prints.
IsisCB Explore
A research tool for the history of science. The core dataset comes from bibliographical citations in the Isis Bibliography of the History of Science.
Iter Bibliography
A bibliography comprised of secondary source material pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Citations for books and journal material are included, as are citations for dissertation abstracts and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, festschriften, encyclopedias and exhibition catalogues).
JSTOR
Provides full-text access to back issues (delay in coverage generally 3-5 years) of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
A national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors.
Oxford Handbooks Online
One of the most prestigious and successful strands of Oxford’s scholarly publishing, the Handbook series contains in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field.
Oxford Scholarship Online
Cross-searchable library containing full-text books in the areas of Classical Studies, Economics and Finance, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, and Sociology.
Project MUSE
A source of complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals with over 120 publishers currently participating.
ProQuest History
Combined search across all Proquest databases relevant to history, including dissertations and theses, historical newspapers and publications on history for researchers of all levels.
SAGE Knowledge eBooks
Includes SAGE eBook and eReference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, and more.
Taylor Francis Online
A collection of full text journals in humanities, social sciences, science and technology from Taylor & Francis, Routledge and Psychology Press, including access to back issues from 1997 where available.
Wiley Online Library
A collection of full-text scientific, technical, medical, social science and business journals published by Wiley.
World Digital Library
Contains significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials.
World History (Gale Onefile)
Provides an overview of world history that covers the most-studied events, periods, cultures, civilizations, religions, conflicts, wars, ideologies, cultural movements, and people.

Database Search Tips PDF
Two page PDF detailing keyword and boolean search tips, Google Scholar boolean search tips, and reverse citation searching.

Electronic Access Help
If you have any queries about our electronic resources (databases, e-journals or e-books), please contact the library using the form on this web page.
Interloan Service
The Interloan service enables library users to search for items, create requests for items not held in the University of Otago Library, and monitor the progress of those requests.
New History Books
Check out the latest History Books now available in the library.
Reserve
Search your paper code (HIST108) to find what high demand texts your lecturers have put on Reserve.
Scan Request
This video shows how to request a PDF scan of a book section or print journal from any Otago library.

Websites

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (Britannica Academic)
Contains the text of the print edition plus thousands of additional articles and images, natural-language searching, and A-Z browsing. Britannica Online is continually updated to provide the most current information possible.
New Zealand History
The site features information and resources from within the Research and Publishing Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Wellington, New Zealand. You can browse content by People, Places, Events and Topics.
Te Ara
Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand offers many pathways to understanding New Zealand. It is a comprehensive guide to the country’s peoples, natural environment, history, culture, economy, institutions and society.

Audio Visual Databases

Academic Video Online (AVON): Premium (Alexander Street)
Multidisciplinary documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs and newsreels, field recordings, commercials, and raw footage.
Digital Theatre Plus
Provides access to high quality films of leading British theatre productions as well as behind-the-scenes documentaries and interviews.
eTV
Provides real-time resources through recorded TV programmes, live streams and on demand videos. First-time users must register.
Kanopy
A streaming service that provides access to video content sourced from leading suppliers.

University of Otago Databases

Otago University Research Archive (OUR Archive)
Repository for selected research produced at the University of Otago. Includes Book, Book chapters, Journal Articles, Theses, Working Papers and more.
Otago University Research Heritage (OUR Heritage)
A window into the cultural, heritage and historical material within the University of Otago's Hocken Collections and Special Collections.
Special Collections
Special Collections contains books and manuscripts which span the earliest examples of European printing (1473) through to modern first editions and publications from the 20th and 21st centuries.

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