Australian history
Recommended readings and exam papers
Begin by looking for any books or journal articles recommended by your lecturers or tutors. Books are kept in the Open Reserve collection in Dixson Library. You can find out the Call Number of these books by searching the catalogue.
Click on the Reserve search and select either Course ID or Instructor from the drop-down box. Type in the unit name (eg hist 150) or your lecturer's surname (eg Piper) to see the lists of items and their Call numbers.
Recommended journal articles, book chapters and exam papers are available online through eReserve & exam papers. The easiest way to see the lists is to use 'My Units' for your currently enrolled units or to Browse the alphabetical list of Unit Codes.
The catalogue
A library catalogue tells you which books, journals and audiovisual items are held by that particular library. You can usually search a number of ways, such as by titles, authors, subjects and call numbers. Help using our catalogue is available online.
To find material about a particular topic try a Subject search. Use the browse search and choose Subject (instead of Title) from the pull-down menu. The library uses standardised subject headings for this type of search rather than Keywords.
Some suggestions for useful subject searches are:
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australia - history |
australia - discovery and exploration |
new south wales - colonization |
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convict ships |
aboriginal australians - history |
land settlement - australia |
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emigration and immigration |
federal government - australia - history |
race relations - australia |
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Sydney (NSW) - history |
australia - politics and government |
convicts |
To find works by a particular author, try an Author search eg Flinders, Matthew. To find critical or biographical information about an author and his/her works, do a Subject search such as Flinders, Matthew.
Reference
Here you can find dictionaries, encyclopaedias, bibliographies and other ready reference tools which will help you to clarify terms and find background information for your assignment topics. The items listed below are held in the University Library.
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R032/A938/1988 |
Australian Encylopaedia |
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R920.094/A938 |
Australian Dictionary of Biography |
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R920.054/D554 |
Dictionary of National Biography (London) |
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R994.003/M978d |
Dictionary of Australian History |
Oxford Companion to Australian History
Oxford Companion to Australian Military History
Journals and databases
Journal articles are not listed individually in the University Library catalogue. Use journal databases to find out what articles have been published about your topic. Databases give you references to articles, reviews, chapters, and papers which appear in journals, books, reports, and conference proceedings.
The best way to find out the most useful databases is to use the Research Guide for History.
For Australian history the Informit databases are the most relevant. Try the Humanities & Social Sciences Collection, Australian Public Affairs Full-Text, AHB (Australian Historical Bibliography), AHRR (Australian Historic Records Register), AUSCHRON (chronology of historic and current events) and MIHILIST (Australasian military history). You can select and search all of these at the same time if you wish. Informit Help is here.
You will find many articles available online. If they are not available in the database itself check the UNE catalogue. Use a Title search to look for the journal title (not the article title) to see if the library holds the volume you need in print. If the journal is online in a different database you will be provided with a URL (web address) to take you directly to it so you can search for the article you want.
To find out how to find information for your assignments, how to use databases, how to cite your references or write an essay, try eSKILLS UNE.