Access, use, and reproduction of the electronic resources made available through the Grinnell College Libraries are governed by license agreements with publishers which may impose greater restrictions on use than does copyright law. The user is responsible for observing these agreements as well as the copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, United States Code), including the fair use guidelines that protect scholarship and research.
When accessing subscription databases from off-campus, you will be asked to sign in using your campus username and password. If you have any problems accessing library resources from off campus, please contact Rebecca Ciota or Sheryl Bissen.


Fully integrated and cross-searchable collection of over 135 academic dictionaries providing short-entry content, as well as many of Oxford’s encyclopedias and companions and other scholarly works.
Print Location: Burling 1st Floor Oversize LB15 .E47 2003
An eight-volume encyclopedia covering key topics in education, including court cases.
Print Location: Burling 2nd Floor LB17 .P485 1996
Examines how philosophical ideas have influenced education, from ancient Greece to the present.

Indexes 2,000 journals published worldwide covering the history of the United States and Canada. Includes some full text. Coverage includes articles, book and media reviews, and abstracts of dissertations.

Access to the full text of approximately 350 scholarly electronic journals in the arts & humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.

1915-present. Index of scholarly and non-scholarly articles, books, government documents, reports, and more, covering global public policy and social issues, from the Public Affairs Information Service.


Digital repository of complete full-text backfiles of several hundred scholarly journals in the Arts & Sciences, Health & General Sciences, and Ecology & Botany, except for the most recent two to five years.
Historical Newspapers and Magazines

Provides free and searchable access to more than 11 million pages of historic newspapers published in the United States and its territories between 1789 and 1922.


1690-1922. Full text of hundreds Early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. The option to search by Article Type allows you to look for cartoons and illustrations.

Provides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States, including full coverage of the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. Reflects the history of the 20th century, offering access to information about history, culture, and seminal developments across nine decades.

1473-1700. Contains digital facsimile page images of over 130,000 works printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere.
Like Google Books, HathiTrust provides free access to the full text of many historical, digitized books. HathiTrust provides more sophisticated searching options (e.g., limit your search to books published in a specific country), but it does not allow Grinnell users to download books as PDFs.
Provides full-text of many books no longer under copyright, and allows searching of the contents of many more titles.

1701-1800. Digitized copies of 138,000 English-language titles and editions published primarily in the United Kingdom and the Americas. Includes books, broadsides, Bibles, tract books, sermons, and printed ephemera.
Digital library of primary sources in American social history, from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.

Before 1000 BCE to the present. Catalog of millions of books, web resources, and other materials held in libraries worldwide, maintained by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The best way to identify resources beyond Grinnell College's collections.
Includes collections of primary source material. Many collections are digitized; other materials may be ordered through ILL and will typically arrive in about three days.


A fully searchable and downloadable electronic database of quantitative facts of American history, covering topics such as economics, education, government, international migration, law, natural resources, religion, sociology, and trade.
Print Location: Burling Reference HA 175 .M55 2003

NCES is the primary federal entity collecting and analyzing education-related data for the United States and other nations. The NCES catalog can be searched to locate NCES publications and data products, many full-text or available for download, including The Condition of Education, The Digest of Education Statistics, TIMSS (Third International Mathematics and Science Study) and the NAEP (Nation's Report Card). NCES also makes available extremely detailed data about pre-K through graduate education and about libraries.




Constantly updated, AP Images provides access to millions of primary source photos from 1825 to the present. Also provides audio, video, graphics, and interactives. This database may be used for educational purposes only.
Search the Historic Iowa Postcard Collection for images of schools.
Provides information on, and access to, the digitized version of the Library of Congress' primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
The DPLA brings together 15 million digitized images, texts, and other materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.
Materials from the PBS series on education in America.
Presents information on education-related topics, provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Contains information on topics such as student achievement, bilingual education, disabled children, delinquent children, class size reduction, drug-free schools, magnet schools, family literacy programs, financial aid, home schooling, postsecondary education, preschools, private schools, public schools, special education, tutoring, and vocational education.
APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, second printing.
Print Location: Perm. Reserve (Burling & Kistle) BF76.7 .P83 2001
Online research management, writing, and collaboration tool designed to help researchers at all levels easily gather, organize, store, and share all types of information and to instantly generate citations and bibliographies.
= Restricted resource
= Images
= Video files
= Audio files
= Scholarly articles
= Quantitative data
= Newspapers
= Highly recommended

Julia Bauder
Social Studies and Data Services Librarian
Tel: 641-269 4431
Or, request a Library Lab. Julia will get in touch with you to set up an appointment to meet.