Arts & Humanities Library
W321 Pattee Library
Penn State University
814-865-1014
Use the Date limiter in the CAT to find early published material.
American Broadsides and Ephemera A collection of pamhlets, broadsides and other materials produced before 1900.
Google Book Search — This digital index to the contents of over 10 million English language books is created from the contents of CIC university libraries and others.
Hathi Trust Digital Library — a digital catalog and repository created by research libraries.
The U.S. Government issues thousands of reports on legal, social, and political issues. Most are in the Social Sciences Library, 2nd Floor, Paterno. Some government documents appear in The CAT, others require specialized access tools.
Many Government reports can be found in LIONSEARCH. Use the Government documents facet on the left after running your search.
Congressional (Proquest). Reports and documents produced by Congress, including hearings, and the texts of laws passed by Congress. Also includes the Congressional Record - debates on the floor of Congress.
EXECUTIVE BRANCH DOCUMENTS can often be found in LIONSEARCH or The CAT. Search by topic or agency. Some Presidential messages (speeches, news conferences, etc.) are online through the American Presidency Project
COURT DECISIONS and LAWS can be found in HEIN Online or Lexis Nexis Academic.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. The official record of U.S. foreign policy with correspondence and papers on major policies and decisions. The years from 1860-1960 are free online. Earlier years can be found in Lexis Nexis Congressional, usually under the title "Documents" and issued by the State Dept.
Declassified Documents Reference System contains formerly classified reports, mostly from the 20th century. A good source for information on U.S. involvment in Latin America during the Cold War.
Digital National Security Archive. Substantial document collections relating to U.S. foreign policy. Includes collections on El Salvador, 1977-1994, Guatemala, 1954-1999, Iran-Contra, Nicaragua, 1978-1990, and Peru, 1980-2000.
The library has an excellent guide to online sources for
18th, 19th and early 20th Century News
Recent News Sources (mostly back to the 1980s)
Looking for More News? – Use NewsCAT to search for newspapers by time period, region, or format.
To find books and other materials at Penn State use the library’s catalog, The CAT. Use “I Want it” to request items from other Penn State campuses.
LionSearch – search many of the Libraries' databases at one time. Use the facet searching on the left side of the screen to limit to specific publication types like books!
In some cases you will discover Penn State does not have the book you need. Use WorldCat to search for materials in libraries worldwide. Use the “Request via ILL” link in WorldCAT to have items delivered to you. For additional options see our "Interlibrary Loan" page.
E-Books
Many historical books have been scanned and are available online. Two of the more significant collections are:
Google Book Search — This digital index to the contents of millions of books contributed by university libraries and others.
Hathi Trust Digital Library — a digital catalog and repository created by research libraries. Some overlap with Google Books.
Lionsearch - is a search engine for fast, simple access to materials from the Penn State University Libraries. LionSearch searches the CAT (online catalog), and many e-journals, and e-books. It does not replace the specialized subject databases, but can be a convenient starting point.
Google Scholar provides a convenient single search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including some books and articles. It does not include all the library's content, so use it as a supplement to library searching, not a replacement. For best results: Before searching Google Scholar, click on the link to "SCHOLAR PREFERENCES." In the LIBRARY LINKS type: Pennsylvania State University and click on FIND LIBRARY. Now, the Google Scholar search results will include a link for "GET IT! @ Penn State" to connect to library subscriptions.
Additional Databases
For MORE Article databases use the Find Articles by Subject page
