J 387 Research Paper

Journalism 387: The Research Project

Locating Primary Sources

 

Keep in mind the following resources:

  • Back issues of newspapers are stored on microfilm in the Microforms Department of the Knight Library (first floor). The microfilm reels are arranged on the shelves alphabetically by city. The Department's holdings are especially rich in Oregon newspapers, and the Department has an online index to its newspapers, listed by city, and showing the dates held.
  • Historic Oregon Newspapers provides full text content of some of Oregon's earliest newspapers.
  • The Historic New York Times offers indexing and full text to this important newspaper, from 1851 to within 3 years of the present.
  • For more complete information on the newspaper holdings of the UO Libraries, consult Newspaper Resources at the UO Libraries.
  • AP Images provides approximately 750,000 archived photos -- dating from the 1840s -- from the library of the Associated Press. In addition, one may search in the full text of Associated Press news releases, sound clips, and AP information graphics (charts, graphs, etc.).
  • Vanderbilt Television News Archive provides an archive of television news broadcasts. At present, the archive offers free video of CNN and NBC news broadcasts; news broadcasts from ABC, and CBS and FoxNews are available for a fee.
  • Recent efforts in the digitization of historic American periodicals have made their access easier. The American Periodical Series Online 1740-1900 consists of digitized reproductions of approximately 1,100 periodicals and newspapers. In addition, Nineteenth Century Masterfile is the primary index for magazines and periodicals published from 1802 to 1906.
  • The UO Libraries Special Collections Department (Knight Library) has the papers, correspondence, and manuscripts of at least 25 prominent journalists, including Robert Cantwell, a writer and editor for Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated; Jeannette Cole Grant, New York Times reporter and co-founder of The New Yorker; and William Tugman, managing editor of the Eugene Register-Guard from 1927-1950. For a list of these and other materials in Special Collections, consult Guide to Sources in American Journalism History (Knight Reference PN 4855 .G85 1989), pages 224-227.
  • For primary sources on journalistic coverage of America at war, see the UO Library's 8-volume set, the Greenwood Library of American War Reporting (Knight D 5 .G84 2005).
  • The UO Library has a comprehensive 52-volume set of interviews with American women journalists, covering most of the twentieth century. For a list, go into the UO Library Catalog and do an author search under: Women in Journalism Oral History Project.
  • University of Oregon Libraries Digital Collections provides access to the Library's growing collection of online repositories, many of them rich in ideas for communication history projects.
  • The Knight Library's Microforms Department (first floor) also has a number of interesting microfilm collections of interest to J387 students:
    • Gerritsen Collection of Women's History, 1543-1945 includes pamphlets and articles from newspapers and periodicals.
    • Japanese Detention Camp Newspapers
    • Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, 1917-1985. Contains the full text of prize-winning articles. MFILM PN 4726 P82
    • Right Wing Collection. Pamphlets and periodicals from right wing, conservative groups. SOC SCI MFILM 566
    • Underground Newspapers Collection. Alternative newspapers from the 1960s and 1970s.
    • Western Americana: Frontier History of the Trans-Mississippi West. Huge collection of original material of the American West. SOC SCI MFILM 554.

      Many of these microfilm collections have finding aids or indexes. Consult Microforms Staff for service in using these sets.

Locating Secondary Sources

  • UO WorldCat offers a streamlined interface for search results that combine, into a single merged list, the collections of the UO Libraries, Summit libraries, and hundreds of other libraries worldwide. When searching in UO WorldCat, entries for items owned by the UO Libraries appear at the top of the list and include information about location and availability. Here are some useful subject headings:
    • su:Communication History
    • su:Advertising United States History
    • su:Mass media History
    • su:Television History
    • su:Motion pictures United States History
    • su:Journalism United States History
  • To find secondary literature in academic periodicals, use:
    • America: History and Life indexes articles in scholarly journals, dissertations, and book reviews.
    • Communication and Mass Media Complete indexes over 500 mass media journals and offers the full text of about 230 of these.
    • Ronald Matlon's Index to Journals in Communication Studies (Knight Reference P 87 .M37) provides retrospective indexing and table of contents for a number of core journals.
    • Consider also these two periodicals: American Journalism (Knight PN 4700 .A39; online since 2003) and Journalism History (Knight PN 4700 .J65; online since 1990). You may want to browse the table of contents as a useful way of discovering possible topics.
  • A select list of reference works in communication history:
    • American Journalism History: An Annotated bibliography (Knight Reference PN 4855 .S56 1989) by William David Sloan. Each chapter covers a distinct historical period. Chapter 15 covers contemporary media from 1945 onwards.
    • Reporting the Pacific Northwest: An Annotated Bibliography of Journalism History in Oregon and Washington by Floyd McKay. (Knight Reference PN 4895 .M3 2004)
    • A History of American Magazines (Knight Reference PN 4877 .M63) by Frank Mott. The first four volumes are a history of American magazines up to 1905. Volume five profiles 21 magazines that began between 1905-1930.
    • For biographical information on prominent American journalists, see the two series entitled American Magazine Journalists (three volumes) and American Newspaper Journalists (four volumes). Both sets have Knight Reference PN 4871 call numbers.
    • U.S. News Coverage of Racial Minorities: a Sourcebook, 1934-1996 (Knight PN 4888 .M56 N48 1997), edited by Beverly Ann Deepe Keever, has chapters on Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders. The work summarizes critical studies and includes extensive notes and a select bibliography.
    • Other useful reference works include:
      • American Mass Market Magazines (Knight Reference PN 4877 .A48 1990)
      • Children's Periodicals of the United States (Knight Reference PN 4878 .C48 1984)
      • Women's Periodicals in the United States (Knight Reference PN 4879 .W6 1995)
      • American Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals (Knight Reference PN 4880 .A46 1987)
      • Black Journals of the United States (Knight Reference PN 4882.5 .D36 1982)
      • History of Oregon Newspapers (Knight Reference PN 4897 .O73 T8)
      • Radio Broadcasting from 1920 to 1990: an Annotated Bibliography (Knight Z 7221 .C37 1991)
  • Some interesting Web sites:

1501 Kincaid Street, Eugene, OR 97403-1299 | T: (541) 346-3053 | F: (541) 346-3485