Library Guide to the American West

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The study of the American West may be undertaken from a variety of disciplines, including History, Sociology, and Anthropology. The Miller Nichols Library Department of Special Collections and Marr Sound Archives includes a wide variety of uniquely valuable primary and secondary sources for the study of the American West, but many useful resources may also be found in our Reference and circulating collections.

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To Find Books

Use the MERLIN Library Catalog and the MOBIUS Union Catalog to find resources relevant to your research. Relevant works can be found using subject headings (Library of Congress) such as:

• West (U.S.)
• West (U.S.) - History - 1848-1860
• West (U.S.) - History - 19th Century
• Frontier and Pioneer Life - West (U.S.)
• Indians of North America - West (U.S.) - History
• Children - West (U.S.) - Social Conditions
• Women - United States - History - 19th Century

Materials relevant to the study of particular states or regions can also be found using subject headings such as:

• Great Plains
• Nebraska - History - 19th Century

To find the location of a book in Miller Nichols Library, see the Location Guide.

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To Find Articles

Remote (off-campus) access to databases is available only to UMKC students, faculty, and staff. All other users must access online resources within the Libraries. Begin searching by selecting a database. After selection you will be prompted to provide a UMKC Single Sign-On user name and password OR a 9-digit UMKC ID number followed by the letter k (example: 0123456789k) and last name, as needed.

• America: History and Life (EBSCOhost) 1964 - present.      Save to del.icio.us
  Indexes and abstracts articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. "Each year over 1,700 journal titles published worldwide are scanned for relevant articles of special interest to students of U.S. and Canadian history and related fields. The database also includes citations and links to book and media reviews from a selection of over 100 key journals in U.S. and Canadian history." [Source: America: History and Life on the Web, accessed May 15, 2006] Link to America History and Life user's guide.
• OmniFile V Full Text (Wilson) 1982 - present.     Save to del.icio.us
  Selected full text 1994 - present.Provides indexing, abstracts, and some full-text from five of Wilson's full-text indexes: General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Wilson Business Full Text.

University Libraries Photocopying and Printing Services

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Reference Sources: Encyclopedias, Statistics, Bibliographies

Reference sources are useful for locating background information, definitions, general descriptions, and basic facts. Use these books to help you select or focus your research topic.

All call numbers in this guide refer to the UMKC Miller Nichols Library, unless otherwise noted. Titles are linked to the corresponding MERLIN Library Catalog record.

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

The Encyclopedia of the Far West	F591 .C362
Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western Fiction	PS374 .W4 E53

Statistics

Historical Atlas of the American West

Ref G1381.S1 B4

Bibliographies

A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Western American Literature	Z1251 .W5 E8
An Annotated Bibliography of Contemporary Fiction about the Modern American West	PS271 .J33
The American West : A Narrative Bibliography and a Study in Regionalism	Ref F591 .W5
A Classified Bibliography of the Periodical Literature of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1811-1957	Z1251 .W5 W53
The Plains and the Rockies : a title listing to the microfiche collection (N-B 9012-9398) - Collection of 2500 fiche includes books, magazine articles, federal documents and newspaper items written from 1800-1965, including rare documents on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. All items are indexed in The Plains and the Rockies.	MicroRef F591 .P52

Additional Resources

The American West	F591 .B86
The American West: An Interpretive History	F591 .H663
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West	E81 .B75
The Oxford History of the American West	Ref. F591 .O95

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Web Resources

• The Multi-cultural American West: A Resource Site
  Washington State University American Studies Program
  (www.wsu.edu:8080/%7Eamerstu/mw/)
• New Perspectives on The West
  PBS site for the documentary series by Ken Burns
  (www3.pbs.org/weta/thewest)
• Western Historical Manuscript Collection
  University of Missouri-Kansas City
  (www.umkc.edu/whmckc/)
• WestWeb: Western Historical Resources
  Ed. Catherine Lavender, City University of New York
  (www.library.csi.cuny.edu/westweb)

Use search engines linked on the Internet Search Tools page to identify additional Web resources.

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For further assistance, please contact the
Miller Nichols Library Reference Desk at (816) 235-1534.

Revised by Rob Ray