Reference Sources

Reference sources provide general background information on a subject or topic. They can often be a good place to start your research, especially if you have a topic for with which you are unfamiliar. Make sure to note the original source of the information, which is usually identified in the form of a bibliography. You can use these references to find more information on the same topic.

Selected Print Resources

• The African American Almanac
  E185 .N385 1997 (Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference)

• Afro-American Writers Before the Harlem Renaissance
  PN41 .D484 1978 v.50 (Part of the Dicitionary of Literary biography Series in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference)

• Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940
  PN41 .D484 1978 v.51 (Part of the Dicitionary of Literary biography Series in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference)

• Afro-American Writers, 1940-1955
  PN41 .D484 1978 v.76 (Part of the Dicitionary of Literary biography Series in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference)

• Black Literature Criticism
  PS153.N5 B556 1992 (3 Volumes in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference, Supplement in Suzzallo Library)

• Black Woman in America: an historical encyclopedia
  E185.86 .B542 1993 (2 Volumes in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference)

• Black writers: a selection of sketches from Contemporary authors
  PN490 .B53 1989 (Suzzallo Reference)

• Contemporary Black Biography
  E185.96 .C66 (3 Volumes in Odegaard Reference)

• Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History
  E185 .E54 1996 (Odegaard Reference)

• Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
  E184 .A1 G14 1995 (2 Volumes in Odegaard and Suzzallo Reference) 1-2
  2000 Edition at UW Bothell

• Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups
  E184 .A1 H35 (Odegaard, Suzzallo, and Social Work Reference)

• Index to Black Periodicals
  A13 .I552

• NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
  Selected materials from Parts 1, 3, 4, 5 and 12 through 24 are housed at the University of Washington in the Microforms/Newspaper library in Suzzallo library.

Selected Electronic and Web Resources

• The African-American Mosaic: A library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
  "The Mosaic is the first library-wide resource guide to the institution's African- American collections. Covering the nearly 500 years of the black experience in the Western hemisphere, the Mosaic surveys the full range size, and variety of the library's collections, including books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound. Moreover, the African-American Mosaic represents the start of a new kind of access to the library's African-American collections, and, the library trusts, the beginning of reinvigorated research and programming drawing on these, now systematically identified, collections. "

• African American women writers of the 19th century
A text database of 52 works by Afro-American women published prior to 1920. Documents are browsable by title, author, or genre (fiction, poetry, biography, or essays); browse lists can be further searched by keywords.

http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/
• Black Drama
This database contains 908 plays by 171 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.

http://www.alexanderstreet2.com/bldrlive/
• Britannica Online
  The online version of one of the world's great encyclopedias. (Users must be connected to the UW computer network.)
  http://www-lj.eb.com:180/

  Ethnic Studies Subject page

  Ethnic Studies Subject Page on the University of Washington libraries Information Gateway.
  http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/EthnicStudies/

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