Ireland: Constructing a National Identity
Library of Congress Classification Outline
This call number classification holds true for any library in the world using
the Library of Congress classification system. For example, English language
dictionaries will always be in the PEs, English literature in the PRs, American
literature the PSs. History of Great Britain is classed DA1 - DA995
(Irish history, DA900 - DA995). Becoming
familiar with these general areas will greatly assist your literary research.
Refer to the classification outline for other subject areas
I. Background Resources
Literary and historical
dictionaries and encyclopedias can provide clarification of specialized terminology
and offer overviews of a variety of topics. Most encyclopedia articles will have a brief
bibliography.
I. A. Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Companion to Irish History, 1603-1921: From the Submission of Tyrone to Partition
.
Peter R. Newman. Oxford; New York: Facts on File, c1991.
Davis Reference DA912 .N485 1991
Encyclopaedia of Dublin.
Douglas Bennett. Dublin; New York: Gill and Macmillan, c1991.
Davis DA995 .D75 B46 1991
Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups, and
Movements of the Twentieth Century.
Peter Barberis, [et al.]. London; New York:
Pinter, 2000.
Davis Reference DA566.7 .E53 2000
The Encyclopedia of Ireland.
Ed. Brian Lalor. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003.
Davis Reference DA912 .E539 2003
The Encyclopedia of Ireland: An A-Z Guide to its People, Places, History,
and Culture.
Ed. Ciaran Brady. New York: Oxford University Press, c2000.
Davis Reference DA906 .E53 2000
Everything Irish: The History, Literature, Art, Music, People, and Places
of Ireland from A-Z.
Ed. Lelia Ruckstein and James A. O'Malley. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.
Davis & U.L. Reference DA906 .E94 2003
A Guide to Irish Mythology.
Daragh Smyth. Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, c1996.
Davis & Davis Reference BL900 .S495 1996
Historical Dictionary of Ireland.
Colin Thomas, Avril Thomas. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1997.
Davis Reference DA910 .T39 1997
Ireland, a Cultural Encyclopaedia.
Ed. Brian de Breffny. London: Thames and Hudson, c1983.
Davis NX546 .A1 1983b
Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition.
Daithi O hOgain. New York: Prentice Hall Press, c1991.
Davis Reference GR153.5 .O16 1991
A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800.
D.J. Hickey & J.E. Doherty. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003.
Davis Reference DA949.7 .H535 2003
This Great Little Nation: The A-Z of Irish Scandals & Controversies.
Gene Kerrigan and Pat Brennan. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, c1999.
Davis DA912 .K45 1999
I. B. Biographical Dictionaries
A Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Henry Boylan. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, c1998.
Davis Reference CT862 .B695 1998b
Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th-Century Irish Biography.
Ed. Louis McRedmond. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
Davis Reference CT862 .M63 1996
Women of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary.
Kit & Cyril O Ceirin. Kinvara, Co. Galway: Tir olas, 1996.
Davis Reference CT3650 .I73 O24 1996
An Atlas of Irish History.
Ruth Dudley Edwards. 2nd ed. London; New York: Methuen, c1981.
Davis G1831.5 E3 1981
Atlas of Irish History.
Sean Duffy...et al. 2nd ed. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, c2000.
Davis DA911 .A85 2000
A Chronology of Irish History Since 1500.
J.E. Doherty. Savage, Md.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1990
Davis Reference DA910 .D66 1990
Early Irish History and Chronology.
Daibhi O Croinin. Dublin: Four Courts, c2003.
Davis DA930 .O2 2003
A Timeline of Irish History.
Richard Killeen. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003.
Davis DA910 .K55 2003
II. Finding Books on Your Topic
If you are looking for books at UNC-Chapel Hill on a specific topic, you will be searching the UNC-CH catalog. If you are searching for books about Yeats or Parnell (rather than books by them), search for them as "subject" rather than as "author" (search type = Subject Heading). Straightforward enough, once you've identified the authorized form of the personal name: e.g., Yeats W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939. For a major writer like Yeats or historical figure like Parnell, there will be a number of topical subdivisions for them as subject, e.g., "biography," "correspondence," "criticism and interpretation," "dictionaries." A Subject Heading search automatically truncates, so if you subject search for "yeats w b" your search will pick up all the subdivisions for him.How do you find a book on a particular subject if you don't know a specific author or title? When a book is cataloged, it is assigned "subject headings" according to a controlled vocabulary known as Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). The terminology is often confusing and the syntax or order of the terms is not always intuitive (Ireland -- History rather than History -- Ireland is the standard form). If you do not know the terminology (is it imperialism or colonialism?), you can do a keyword search to identify the authorized headings. Caveat: keyword searching can be very sloppy, so rather than go through thousands of potentially irrelevant records, identify one or two relevant books, look at the L. C. Subject Headings and then do a subject search using relevant terminology. For example, a keyword search for "easter rebellion" and "ireland" retrieves 3 bibliographic records in our catalog. Looking at the full record of one of these will reveal the LCSH to be: Ireland -- History -- Easter Rising, 1916. If you do a Subject Heading search for this terminolgy you will retrieve over 100 titles on this topic. Below are some subject headings Irish social history.
Potentially Useful Library of Congress Subject Headings
Dublin (Ireland) -- History -- Encyclopedias
Folklore -- Ireland -- Dictionaries
Ireland -- Biography -- Dictionaries
Ireland -- Chronology
Ireland -- Civilization -- 19th century
Ireland -- Civilization -- 20th century
Ireland -- Encyclopedias
Ireland -- History -- Civil War, 1922-1923
Ireland -- History -- Civil War, 1922-1923 -- Biography
Ireland -- History -- Dictionaries
Ireland -- History -- Encyclopedias
Ireland -- History -- Easter Rising, 1916
Ireland -- History -- Easter Rising, 1916 -- Drama
Ireland -- History -- Easter Rising, 1916 -- Personal narratives
Ireland -- History -- War of Independence, 1919-1921
Ireland -- In literature
Ireland -- Politics and government
Ireland -- Social conditions
Ireland -- Social life and customs
Mythology, Celtic -- Dictionaries
Scandals -- Ireland -- Encyclopedias
Women -- Ireland -- Biography -- Dictionaries
III. Historical Indexes: Finding Scholarly Articles on a
Topic
To identify scholarly articles on a topic, begin with the appropriate subject
index. Although Google is an excellent search engine, it can be a waste
of time when trying to find articles in scholarly journals -- because most scholarly
journals, even if they exist electronically, are usually not freely available on the Web..
The Library subscribes to hundreds of indexes & databases and to thousands of
journals -- and makes them available to students.
Some indexes are bibliographic, i.e., they refer you to an article in a journal, etc.
Other indexes link to full-text articles. Only a fraction of the total number of
journals that exist or have existed are available online;
many still exist in print only. First search the appropriate index(es), then search
the
catalog by the journal title to see if UNC-Chapel Hill has the particular volume
& issue you need. If UNC-Chapel Hill does have a journal in electronic format,
it should be listed on the
E-Journal Finder.
From the
Library's homepage, you can select
Research by Subject and then choose
indexes, e-journals, & subject guides alphabetically, e.g.,
History.
Historical Abstracts
Historical Abstracts indexes journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews
& dissertations in non-North American history, 1450 A.D. to the present.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
IV. Databases for Current Newspapers &
Magazines
These databases link to many full-text articles. However, they are not
as specialized as the above indexes such as Historical Abstracts.
Academic Search Elite
Indexes a mix of scholarly journals and popular magazines, with links to many full-
text articles.
Article Databases & More
Expanded Academic ASAP
This also indexes both scholarly journals and popular magazines, with full-text
links.
Article Databases & More
Lexis/Nexis Academic
Lexis/Nexis Academic provides full-text access to many newspapers (& other materials).
However, there is no subject indexing, so you must rely on various keyword terms
in your search strategies (e.g. "Ireland and racism," "Ireland and minorities").
Article Databases & More
V. Primary Source Databases
The databases below contain searchable full-text literary and historical texts.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online [EEBO] includes the total surviving published record
of the English-speaking world for 227 years in digital format. It reproduces
images of over 125,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England and
her colonies in any language between 1475 and 1700, and in English worldwide for
this period.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
The Eighteenth Century Collections Online [ECCO] provides remote access to 33
million full-text images and text-searchable pages of nearly 150,000 English-language
titles and editions published between 1701-1800. It is based on The English Short
Title Catalogue, a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library
and more than 1,500 university, private, and public libraries worldwide.
Literature Online (LION)
LION is a database of more than 350,000 English-language literary texts -- poems,
plays,and novels.
It also links to an index of literary criticism, ABELL, literary reference sources,
and literary web sites.
VI. Library Tutorial: Introduction to Library Research
Can't Find What You Are Looking For? How Can We Help You?
E-mail Reference questions to our e-mail reference service
Suggestions on Library Services? Give us your feedback.
URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/instruction/Eng1167.html
This page was last updated Monday, July 18, 2005.