Approaching the material:

1. How did the general press cover your event?
Check newspapers or other similar materials, for those dates.

2. How was your event covered by the press written by a particular group?
Use indexes to ethnic resources by topic to find materials

3. Was your event fairly recent?
Check blogs for opinions as well.

5. Want to confirm author identity?
Use biographical indexes to see if you can confirm person's background

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1. For general press coverage of an event or issue, check newspapers and magazines:

Proquest Newstand Complete (from the eighties and nineties to date) For a list of publications included (if you have titles you're trying to find), click on the publications tab once you fire up PNC.

LexisNexis Academic   make sure to use the "news" tab; remember to use the ! to truncate your terms if needed.

Westlaw Campus Research   make sure to use the "news" tab; remember to use the ! to truncate your terms if needed.

New York Times (1851-2005)
Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1986)

Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature is an index to general interest magazines like Time and Newsweek. It goes back to 1890. We get it in hard copy so it's in the Reference Room [R.R. AI3.R48] For access to recent magazines use Academic Search Premier and choose the "magazine" tab.

Alternative Press Index    You'll have to ask a reference librarian for the password (can't post it here -- sorry). But you can call x3452 or IM off the library home page if you're not in the building.

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2. For newspapers or magazines published by a particular group, check specialized indexes:

To find relevant newspapers and magazines to browse in the collections:
In Bridge, search under keywords "African Americans and Periodicals," "Asian Americans and Periodicals," "Indians of North America Periodicals" or "(Hispanic or Chicano) and periodicals" to determine which periodicals may be found in the two colleges.

African American
Black Studies Center includes the newspapers: Chicago Defender, Daily Defender, and
New York Amsterdam News full text plus many journals like The Crisis (NAACP).
Other possibilities:
African American Review (online through JSTOR; newer issues in print on the 4th floor)
American Visions: The Magazine of Afro-American Culture (1996-2000 on 4th floor)
Journal of African American History [earlier issues as Journal of Negro History] (online through JSTOR; newer issues in print on the 4th floor)
Pittsburgh Courier -- Carleton

Hispanic Amerian
Hispanic American Periodical Index
Aztlan

Asian American
Amerasia Journal
The Pacific Citizen

Native American
Indian Country Today
American Indian Quarterly
The Circle

ProQuest Ethnic Newswatch papers
Another database, this one more contemporary, of ethnic newspapers and magazines. Carleton subscribes to Ethnic Newswatch if you can't find the newspapers easily on line elsewhere. We will be subscribing and have requested a trial so you can try it out. I'll let you know when it starts.

Other useful sources for determining perspective by publication name:
Magazines for Libraries [R.R. PN4832.M23 2004]
American Mass Market Magazines [R.R. PN4877.A48 1990]
Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media [R.R. PN4867.G28]
World Press Encyclopedia: A Survey of Press Systems Worldwide [R.R. PN4728.Q53 2003] by country with title index.

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3. For contemporary issues and events, check blogs, too:

Google's Blog Search indexes blogs from all over the world . With advanced search you can limit to words in the posting title or the blog title and limit by english.

Technorati is another standard blog index .

Lexis Nexis Academic offers an index to blog postings . On the entry page, change the checkbox to blogs. Remember to use the ! to truncate your terms if needed.

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4. For basic background information on major issues and events, check encyclopedias:

African American History and Current Events
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History [R.R. E 185 .E54 2006]
Africana [R.R. DT14.A37425 2005]

Native American History and Current Events
Native America in the Twentieth Century [R.R. E76.2.N36 1994]
Native America Today [R.R. E98.T77P75 1999]
Native American Issues [R.R. E98.T77T56 2005]

Asian American History and Current Events
Asian American Almanac [R.R. E 184.O6A824 1995]
Japanese American History [R.R. E184.J3J3355 1993]

Mexican American History and Current Events
The Mexican American Experience [R.R. E184.M5M4535 2003]

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5. To determine or confirm author identity, check biographical indexes:

General
Biography and Geneology Master Index
This is an index to biographical dictionaries. It doesn't provide content but will lead you to places that do. Look up the titles in Bridge to see if we have them.
Google -- it goes without saying that google will be of use here. However, it might be better to get an idea of birth and death dates before trying google if you can.

African American
African American Lives [R.R. E185.96.A446 2004]
Who's who among African Americans [R.R. E185.96.W42 2003]
Black Women in America [R.R. E185.86.B542 2005]
Distinguished African American Political and Governmental Leaders [R.R. E185.61.H359 1999]
[And many others in this area of the reference room]

Native American
American Indian Biographies [R.R. E89.A46 1999]
A to Z of Native American Women [R.R. E98.W8S65 1998]

Hispanic/Latino American
Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States [R.R. E184.S75O97 2005]
Mexican American Biographies [R.R. E184.M5M454 1988]

Literary
Contemporary Authors [R.R. PN451.C6]
Dictionary of Literary Biography[R.R. PN451.D4] do a keyword search in Bridge on "Dictionary Literary Biography Afro-American" or "Dictionary Literary Biography Asian American"