Research Guides: Latin American History: Secondary Sources

How to read an LC Call Number

Library of Congress (LC) Call Numbers are like an item's address to help you find where it lives on the shelf. Each letter stands for an academic discipline. In the image below, L is for Education, LD is for Individual Institutions - United States. Can you guess which institution is at LD 4363 .U55 2006?

To read a call number, read the number from left to right or top to bottom as follows:

Alphabetically (L before LC, LC before LD)
Numerically (4363 before 4364.6)
Alphabetically (.A before .B)
Decimal order (.A2 before .A5 or .A55)
(Sometimes there are more pieces in alphabetical and then numerical order here)
Finally, chronologically (1985 before 1986) This is year of publication and may or may not be included.

Lastly, the shelf is organized from top to bottom in sections, so you'll zig-zag down each section to look for your call number before moving to the next section.

Bonus: You can also click the "Locate" option in LibrarySearch to see a floor map with the number of the shelf your item is on.

LC Subject Classification

Library of Congress Classification Subject Areas

Please note, some of the UO Libraries' materials may be located in branch libraries or special locations within Knight Library.
Letter	Subject Area
A	General Works
B	Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
C	Auxiliary Sciences of History
D	World History
E	History of the Americas
F	History of the Americas
G	Geography, Anthropology, Recreation
H	Social Sciences
J	Political Science
K	Law
L	Education
M	Music
N	Fine Arts
P	Language and Literature
Q	Science
R	Medicine
S	Agriculture
T	Technology
U	Military Science
V	Naval Science
Z	Bibliography, Library Science, Information Resources

To drill down into the LC Classification Outline, use the link below:

Library of Congress Classification Outline

UO LibrarySearch - Find articles, books, and more

LibrarySearch offers a streamlined interface for finding books and other media that combines the collections of UO Libraries and Summit libraries.

Secondary Sources for Latin American History

These databases will provide you with scholarly research on the history of Latin America.

Academic Search Premier
Multi-disciplinary database providing indexing, abstracts, and selected full text for peer reviewed/scholarly articles, magazines, trade publications, and newspapers in all fields.
Cambridge Histories
Covers a range of subjects focusing on history, but also includes literature, political philosophy, religion, theatre, and music.
HLAS online
Multidisciplinary handbook on Latin America covering both the social sciences and humanities.
Works by Latin American scholars, edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress.
HAPI
Selectively indexes journals in the social sciences and humanities, focussing on Central and South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S.
Historical Abstracts
Index to scholarly articles covering world history (with the exception of the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present
LibrarySearch
Covers items owned by the UO Libraries, Summit libraries, and articles and other scholarly research materials.
PRISMA database
Provides full-text scholarly journals in the social sciences and humanities for the interdisciplinary academic study of Hispanic and Latin America, and the Caribbean Basin.
RedALyC
Indexes academic journals from throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula.
SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online
Academic journals in sciences, social sciences, and humanities from throughout the the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world. SciELO integrates the work of database projects based across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. This resource also includes some English-language articles.
WorldCat
WorldCat provides access to library catalogs from around the world. The database contains millions of bibliographic records describing books, journals, maps, musical scores, recordings, videos, manuscripts, etc.

Finding Books & More at UO Libraries (Infographic)

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About LCSH Subdivisions

About Subject Heading Subdivisions

Subdivisions, or subheadings, are words or phrases which may be added to a subject heading to create a more effective search. They are hyperlinked in LibrarySearch so that you can use them to see all records they are connected with.

Some standard subheadings are:

Type of Subdivision	Examples	Useful for:
Topical – What this item is about (content)	Museums Aging Statistical Methods	Narrowing a broader topic into subtopics
Form	Dictionaries Periodicals Textbooks	Useful for locating specific types of materials
Chronological	21st century Japanese Heian period, 794-1185 Middle Ages, 600-1500	Locating information about a particular era or time period
Geographical (place)	England --London Eugene (Or.) Narnia (Imaginary place)	Finding information about a specific place or region
Other Common Subdivisions	Bibliography Biography Criticism and interpretation Translations into [language] Social life and customs Fiction	Locating bibliographies, fiction, etc.

Cataloging librarians follow specific rules for adding LC Subject Headings to an items record.

For a deeper dive, see Library of Congress Subject Headings

Accessing an Online Article From LibrarySearch or a Database (UO video tutorial)

Want materials (e.g., books, articles) that the library doesn't have? Use Interlibrary Loan!

Submit an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request if you need something that isn't available in the UO Libraries collection and we will try to get it for you.

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Latin American History

Letter

Subject Area