Welcome to the library guide for Irish Studies! In this guide, you'll find curated resources that are relevant to research in the Irish Studies discipline, as well as research tips, and information on library services.
Depending on where you are, you'll access online library resources in different ways.
Below are some essential library resources you should keep in mind.
The library's search tool for discovering materials both on the shelves and online. It also includes millions of full-text articles and citation records sourced from publishers, open access repositories, and most of the library’s licensed databases. To explore content that is not fully searchable in OneSearch, click here to view a list of databases with limited or no coverage.
Start here! Useful databases for getting started on your research. Visit the tab on "Finding Sources" for more subject specific research resources.
Search or browse all databases. Recommended databases are listed below.
Full text of thousands of academic journals, magazines, and other publications across a wide range of disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and more.
Explore over 2,800 academic journals across more than 60 disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Access millions of primary sources from four unique collections: Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa, and World Heritage Sites: Africa. Discover over 3 million high-quality images from ARTstor, along with a growing library of 10,000+ open access books. Click more… for links to specific collections.
ARTstor on JSTOR
Existing ARTstor logins automatically work on JSTOR. The separate artstor.org platform will be available until Aug 1, 2024, when it is scheduled to be retired.
Open Access books on JSTOR
More than 10,000 open access (OA) books from 125+ publishers, including Brill, Cornell University Press, University College of London, and University of California Press.
19th Century British Pamphlets
Nearly 26,000 pamphlets from collections in seven universities spanning more than one million pages. Brings together a corpus of primary sources for the study of sociopolitical and economic factors impacting 19th-century Britain.
New Collections Added Aug 2023
Thematic Collections
Three collections focusing on emerging areas of research and containing multiple types of content, including journals and open research reports. Collections include:
•Lives of Literature - Academic journals devoted to the deep study of writers and texts associated with core literary movements.
•Security Studies - Academic and open policy research on international and national security problems and foreign policy issues.
•Sustainability - Academic and open policy research on environmental stresses and their impact on society. Looks at sustainability and resilience through a broad lens spanning more than 30 disciplines.
Primary Sources
Global Plants
A growing collection of nearly three million high-resolution type plant specimens and related materials from over 300 community contributors around the world.
Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa
27,000 objects and 190,000 pages of documents and images related to the liberation struggles and end of Apartheid in Southern Africa during the 20th Century, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
World Heritage Sites: Africa
More than 86,000 objects of visual, contextual, and spatial documentation of African heritage and rock art sites.
Full text biographical essays of over 11,000 notable Irish men and women who made a significant contribution in Ireland and abroad, from earliest times to 2013. Moved to an open access database in 2021.
Questions to guide the development of your research question:
Let's go over a few ways you can come up with keywords:
Another search strategy is to use subject terms or phrases. Subject terms are standardized word(s) that describe the main idea of an article or other source. In many databases, but not all, you can use subject terms or phrases to capture the different ways authors refer to the same concept. For example, in the database Academic Search Complete, you will find the following subject terms representing “famine”:
You can identify subject terms by looking at a source citation or abstract in a database, or under the Details tab in OneSearch. Subject terms vary by database, they are not always intuitive, and it is common to use both keywords and subject terms in constructing a search.
Like searching with keywords, it is a good idea to keep track of which combinations of subject terms you have searched.
Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812 | 406-243-6866 | Contact Us