Dates Available in AHL and HA
Connecting to AHL and HA
Searching AHL and HA
Reading and Understanding AHL and HA Search Results
Printing, E-mailing or Saving
Does Randall Library Own The Article Cited

Dates Available in AHL and HA

Both databases index publications issued from the 1950s. America: History & Life covers all periods of U.S. and Canadian history. Historical Abstracts indexes publications about the history of the rest of the world since 1450.

Connecting to AHL and HA

1. Click on Search the Research Databases on the Randall Library Home Page http://library.uncw.edu. Databases are listed alphabetically.

2. Select A for America History and Life or H for Historical Abstracts then click on the database title.

How To Search AHL and HA

Read the screens carefully. Follow the prompts at the bottom and top and sides of the screen for help in conducting your search. The search screen looks like this

The sections, or FIELDS, of the form are described below.
You can see an alphabetical list of entries in each field by clicking on the magnifying glass icon at the end of the line.

KEYWORD:

This is a "free-text" field allowing you to search for words in the title, abstract, and descriptors of a record. Phrases can be entered in quotation marks to search on the phrase, e. g., "New economic policy" but it is not recommended for common phrases, such as Civil War.

SUBJECT TERMS:

Descriptors are labels indicating the subject of the publication. This field provides a "controlled-vocabulary" to provide consistency in defining the subject of publications. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the end of the line to browse through the list of subject terms.

AUTHOR/EDITOR:

To find publications by author’s name, enter the last name first in quotation marks: "Franklin John" or "Franklin John Hope" Without the quotation marks, you would retrieve John Hope Franklin or any record that has names including John and Franklin, e.g., Jameson, John Franklin.

TITLE/TRANSLATION:

Titles of articles, books, films, etc.

LANGUAGE:

Indicates language of publication. Enter "English" here to retrieve only records written in English. Most articles in AHL are written in English, but many publications indexed in HA are in other languages.

DOCUMENT TYPE:

Article, Book Review, Collection, Dissertation, or Media Review

JOURNAL NAME:

Enter a journal title to limit your search to articles in that journal. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the end of the line to browse through the list of journals indexed.

PUBLICATION DATE:
Publication year. You can search a single year or year ranges.

Examples:
1988 (single year)
1988 - 1990 (range of years)

1988 - (works published since 1987)

TIME PERIOD:

Enter decades (e.g., 1920D) or centuries (1700H) only.

Search Strategy:
The more spaces on the form you fill in the narrower your search becomes. The Boolean operators AND, OR, and AND NOT are available in each field. The search logic interprets absence of operators in a field containing two or more search terms separated by spaces as an implied "AND" operator between these terms.

OPERATOR: AND RESULT: Retrieves entries containing both terms.	OPERATOR: AND NOT RESULT: Retrieves entries that include the first term(s) AND NOT the term that follows.
OPERATOR: OR RESULT: Retrieves entries containing the first term OR the second term.	PHRASE SEARCHING: " " RESULT: Use quotation marks around words you want searched as a phrase.
WILDCARD: * RESULT: If the exact spelling of a word is unknown, insert an asterisk (*) for an indeterminate number of unknown letters. For instance, presiden* will retrieve records containing the words PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTS, PRESIDENTIAL, or PRESIDENCY.	WILDCARD: ? RESULT: If the exact spelling of a word is unknown, insert a question mark (?) for each unknown letter. For instance, wom?n retrieves WOMAN or WOMEN

Reading and Understanding Search Results

First you will see a brief record for each item which matches your search request. To see the full record, click on the "Display Full Entry" button. As you find relevant records, click once in the "Tagged" box to mark the record for printing, e-mailing or saving.

Brief Record Sample:

Printing, E-Mailing or Saving Search Results

1. Check off records you would like to print or email in the "Tagged" box.
2. On the left side of the screen, choose the "Tagged Results" button when you are ready to print or email.
3. Review the citations, then click on "Output Options" on the left side of the screen.

4. Check the Entry Format you wish (Short or Full.)

5. For printing or saving, use ASCII Display. A new webpage appears, which you can print or save using the browser’stoolbar.

To e-mail your results, enter your full e-mail address, e.g., name@uncwil.edu

Does Randall Library Owns The Article Cited?

Use the library catalog to search for journal titles or other material titles. Some journals are indexed in other databases. If you need help searching a citation, please ask a reference librarian for help.

Last Update: December 12, 2005

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