The purpose of this pathfinder is to introduce patrons of West Virginia State College's Drain-Jordan Library to items on Native Americans, which can either be found in, or accessed from, the Drain-Jordan Library. Those items include books, magazines, journals, and CD ROM databases in the library; and online databases and web sites on the Internet.

       About Library of Congress Subject Headings. Before searching the online card catalogue (VTLS),  it helps to know a few Library of Congress subject headings. One method for identifying these subject headings is to look up plausible terms in the Library of Congress Subject Headings, the 5 red-bound volumes which are located on shelves in front of the Reference Desk. Another method is to locate an item that you already know is about the topic in the online catalogue, and to scroll down and click on the item's card icon  to see what Subject headings  have been assigned to this item. For example, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) uses the term "Indians" for the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. More specifically, LCSH uses "Indians of North America" for those peoples indigenous to the United States and/or Canada.  Often, if an item is about one particular tribe, the item will have the tribe's name as its subject heading. "Algonquian Indians," "Comanche Indians," "Dakota Indians," "Eskimos," and "Oglala Indians"--- all are a few examples of Library of Congress subject headings found by searching for a particular tribe. (In addition to entering Library of Congress subject headings, try entering "Native Americans," "American Indians," " Indigenous people," or even the name of a specific American Indian leader, when looking for information with search engines on the Internet.)
 

General Encyclopedias

Title	Publisher	Call Number	Location
Academic American Encyclopedia	Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1997	Ref AE 5.A23	Reference Room
Encyclopaedia Americana	Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1996	Ref AE 5.E333	Reference Room
Encyclopaedia Britannica	Chicago: Britannica, 1998	Ref AE 5.E502	Reference Room
World Book	Chicago: World Book, 1995	Ref AE 5.W55	IMC

         See "American Indian" in the Index volume of Britannica or "Indian, American" in the Index volumes of the other encyclopedias.
 

Subject Encyclopedias

Title	Publisher	Call Number	Location
Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Indians	Detroit: Gale, 1998	Ref E 77.G15	Reference Room
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups	Cambridge, MS: Belknap Pr of Harvard U, 1980	Ref E 184 A1 H35	Reference Room

Handbooks, Manuals, Almanacs

Title	Author	Publisher	Call Number	Location
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico	Hodge, Frederick Webb	Totowa, NJ:Rowman & Littlefield, 1975	E 76.2 H688	First Tier
Handbook of North American Indians	Sturtevant, William E.	Washington: Smithsonian Institution,  1978	E 77 H25	First Tier
Native American Almanac: A Portrait of Native America Today	Hirschfelder, Arlene	NY: Prentice Hall, 1993	Ref E 77 H59	Reference Room

Bibliographies

 
 
 
 

Biographies

American National Biography
Native American Women
 

Government Documents

 

Stacks

Title	Author	Publisher	Call Number	Location
Removal of the Cherokee Nation	Filler, Louis	Boston: Heath, 1962	E 99 C5 F5	First Tier

Indexes

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature - paper index, use to research periodicals published before 1986.
 

         Ethnic NewsWatch provides full text access to newspapers and magazines of the ethnic and minority press. Many Native American publications are included: Char-Coosta News,Cherokee Advocate, The Circle, The Citizen, Fort Apache Scout, Indian Country Today, Lakota Times, Native Nevadan, Navajo Nation Today, Seminole Tribune, Sho-Ban News, Tundra Times, Wind River News, and more.
 

Two Maps. Compare a tribal distribution map from the year 1600 with a map which depicts tribal distribution in 1970. (http://www.geocities.com/s_rtout/NA-Maps.html)
 

American Indian and Alaska Native Areas 1990 Census links to vital Census information on Native Americans in the United States. (http://govinfo.kerr.orst.edu/cgi-bin/aian-state)

Digital Librarian's Native American Resources contains hundreds of links to Native American sites and resources on the Internet. (http://www.digital-librarian.com/nativeamericans.html)

History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs.  This site, part of the Library of Congress' American Memory project, features a clickable Subject Index.  Scroll down to Indians of North America-- and click on various links to find Native American photographs from this online collection, courtesy of the Denver Public Library. (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/codhtml/hawpsubjindex1.html)

Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Volume II (Treaties), compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler for the Government Printing Office in 1904 and produced by the Oklahoma State University Library for the Internet in 1997, this site presents the complete texts to major treaties between Native American tribes and the United States Government from 1770-1890.  Click on Table of Contents. Then select and click on a time period (1800-1809 for example). Finally, scroll down the screen and click on a specific treaty. (http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/)

Indian Land Cessions in the United States. Features "The Schedule of Indian Land Cessions," which 'indicates the number and location of each cession by, or reservation for, the Indian tribes from the organization of the Federal Government to and including 1894; with descriptions of the tracts so ceded or reserved; the date of the treaty, law or executive order governing the same; the name of the tribe or tribes affected thereby; and historical data and references bearing thereon.'  The schedule comprises 709 entries with links to the related map or maps for each entry. Tables and essays are available in both searchable text and page images, and the maps are available as images. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss-ilc.html)

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) American Indians on Microfilm site is essentially a web bibliography of all the NARA's Native American documents recorded and available on microfilm. (http://www.nara.gov/publications/microfilm/amerindians/indians.html)  Actual links to online Census Rolls (such as the Dawes Commission Rolls) can be accessed by searching NARA's NAIL (NARA Archival Information Locator) database.
(http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail/nailgen.html#final)

National Congress of American Indians includes a Tribal Directory and features an Issues in Indian Country section with links to many documents relevant to American Indians today. (http://www.ncai.org/)

Native American Document Project provides legislation and statistical information on federal Indian policy. (http://www.csusm.edu/projects/nadp/nadp.htm)

Native American Resources is a megasite which contains hundreds of links (alphabetically arranged) to Native American Tribes and Nations' web sites. (http://www.klingon.org/native/pages/nations.html)

Native Tribes of The United States and Canada is a directory which provides the addresses, and telephone and fax numbers for many of the Native Tribes of  North America. (http://www.dickshovel.com/trbindex.html).
Dick Shovel's Bibliography

Smithsonian Institution's List of Publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology  is an online bibliography which offers a complete guide to research published by the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1877-1971. (http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin200/200title.htm)

Smithsonian Institute's Native American History and Culture site maintains links to "Native American Resources" "Selected Exhibitions," and "Recommended Reading Lists" web pages compiled by the Smithsonian. (http://www.si.edu/
resource/faq/nmai/start.htm)  Its "Reference Books on Native Americans" web page provides a useful bibliography of reference sources. (http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmai/referenc.htm)

Subject Guide for Native American Studies offers information about the Yale University Library's print and microform collections, online databases, internet resources, and other resources for conducting research. (http://www.library.yale.edu/rsc/native/)

U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs site includes a link to a
"Tribal Leaders Directory for each of the 566 Federally Recognized Tribes" page, which features a Tribal Directory. The Bureau's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page is also useful. (http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html)

THE WEST is based upon Ken Burns' eight-part documentary series, which premiered on PBS in September 1996.  This site features an invaluable Archives of the West  section with many Native American-related documents and photographs. (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/)
  prepared by Robert Tout, 12/01
This Library Handout is located at http://library.wvsc.edu/handouts/hisnaweb.html