Finding Basic Materials and Background Information
Finding Books Beyond Madcat: the Card Catalog and the Cutter Stacks
Browsing Areas and Asking for Help
ENCYLOPEDIAS
Paxton, John. Companion to the French Revolution. : Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 .Call Number: DC147 P38 1988
Historical dictionary of the French Revolution 1789-1799. Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262. Call Number: DC147 H57 1985
Ross, Steven T. Historical dictionary of the wars of the French Revolution.: Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262. Call Number: DC147 R7 1998
Smith, Digby George. The Greenhill Napoleonic wars data book : Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 Call Number: DC220 S63 1998
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Focus on English-language materials: AHA Guide to Historical Literature. Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 Call Number: D 20 A63 1995. Vol 1
Focus on French-language materials: Bibliographie de la Révolution Française 1940-1988. Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 Call Number: DC 148 F53 1989 and The Era of the French Revolution: A Bibliography of the History of Western Civiilization, 1789-1799. Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 Call Number DC 148 C34 1985
Browsing in the DC call number (French History) section of the Reference Stacks on the Second Floor South will turn up more materials..
WEBSITES:
the World Wide Web Virtual Library: History of France http://www.revues.org/vlib/
It is helpful to know that books on the French Revolution and related subjects are assigned standardized subject headings. You can use these standard terms to form a keyword or subject search in Madcat which will retrieve most of the possibilities.
Examples of useful subject terms include:
France--History--Revolution
other useful terms include "sources" for collections of primary source materials, and "personal narratives" for individual diaries, memoirs and eyewitness accounts. These are assigned under most historical subjects and they can be very helpful in searching for printed or microform primary sources. "Women" is also often assigned as a subject term.
for example: using a Madcat guided subject search: France and Revolution and Women combines these three assigned subject terms.
You can LIMIT most searches by language and year of publication, too. This is very helpful when you get too many results.
If you know one good book on your topic, look that book up in Madcat and choose the FULL display. This will show the subject headings which were assigned to this book. Click on the subject terms to see other books which were given these subjects.
Although records are being added for these materials every day, for now serious historians must also use the CARD CATALOG on the second floor of Memorial Library. Use the Card Catalog on the second floor to look up a book whose author and title you know, if it is a book older than the mid-1970's and you do not find it in MadCat. You can use the Subject Card Catalog, in the basement of Memorial Library, to do a subject search for older materials. The Card Catalog also lists older materials in other campus libraries which are not in Madcat.
"Cutter" is the name of the old-style classification system used for these materials, hence the name "Cutter Stacks.". These materials are listed in the Card Catalog, and a few of them are in Madcat. Although these "Cutter" materials may be found in a subject search using the Subject Card Catalog, often just browsing the shelves in the Cutter Stacks if you know the Cutter Call Number for your subject is the easiest way to find things if you are not looking for a specific item but just want to find older histories, collections of documents, or other kinds of printed source material. The Cutter Call Numbers for the French Revolution are: F393-F394 and JT 393-JT 394.
Use the Madcat "Basic" Search
Do a Subject Browse for: France History Revolution, 1789-1799 Sources
Or do a Keyword Search using: France and Revolution and Sources
Do the same thing using Personal Narratives instead of Sources
Use the Madcat "Guided" Search
Put in France and Revolution and Sources as a single guided subject search. You can limit your results to just-English if you want.
Do the same thing using Personal Narratives instead of Sources
FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS (MICRO FILM 761) IS A MICROFILMED COLLECTION OF PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. IT IS AVAILABLE IN THE MICROFORMS/MEDIA CENTER, 443 MEMORIAL LIBRARY.
This collection includes many facets of the revolutionary era -- political, religious, cultural, financial, governmental. Some of these pamphlets are listed in Madcat, but if you use the printed Guide to this collection, located in the Microforms/Media Center, you will find many more possibilities.
The Special Collections Department on the 9th Floor of Memorial Library includes materials published before 1800. You will find English-language as well as foreign language materials here. The Special Collections Card Catalog lists items by the year and place where they were published, as well as by author and title. Since these materials are rare, they can be used only in the Special Collections Reading Room.
Examples of materials about the French Revolution in Special Collections:
THE TWO BEST RESOURCES FOR SCHOLARLY FULL-TEXT ARTICLES IN HISTORY ARE:
the most important resource for locating scholarly articles of all kinds in European History -- including those only available in printed form--is:
Once you have found a useful-looking article in HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS, check MADCAT under the JOURNAL TITLE to see if the journal is available on campus. Most will be in Memorial Library.
Browsing in the "DC" (History of France) call numbers on the 7th floor, especially DC 146-DC 151 can sometimes give you an overview of what is available. You can do a "Call Number Browse" in Madcat as well.
Browsing is an excellent way of locating materials in the Cutter Stacks (4th floor South). Useful Cutter Call Numbers are: F393-394 ; JT 393-394
Ask for help at the Reference Desk on the Second Floor of Memorial Library. Reference librarians here can help you with all aspects of your research and answer all kinds of questions.
Compiled by:
Barbara Walden, European History Librarian
October, 2001
for History 600