Meet with a Librarian
Book a research consultation with one of your MSMU librarians!
Email Us - library@msmu.edu
Your question will be answered by a librarian within 24 hours.
Call Us
Coe - Chalon: 310.954.4370
McCarthy - Doheny: 213.477.2750
Drop In
Stop by the Circulation Desk at either library and ask in person.
As you head down your own path of research, try searching in the databases and websites below.
For a broad, general search, try the QuickSearch box from the Libraries' home page. For more subject-specific resources, browse our other research guides.
And don't forget to schedule an appointment with a librarian for help at any point along the way.
When choosing a topic to research it can be helpful to look through recent journals or encyclopedias in your field of study. This may help spark ideas or pique your interest!
For argumentative papers, or current controversial issues try one of the databases below:
Source for information on social issues. Includes access to viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, interactive maps, videos, streaming audio, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
In-depth coverage of important issues of the day. Reports are written by professional journalists, footnoted and fact-checked. Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, and resources for additional research, some graphics and photos are included.
Explore some of these sites for more ideas on choosing a topic.
Selected MSMU Libraries subscription newspaper databases:
Provides access to five newspaper and news-related ProQuest databases. Databases can be searched individually or at the same time. Also included is access to ProQuest Newsstand, which contains full-text for articles, columns, editorials, and obituaries from over 1,300 newspapers, news websites, and blogs such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and more.
Provides access to the five top US national and regional newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. Content is available by 8am each day and provides archives stretching as far back as 1985.
A current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989. Ethnic NewsWatch is searchable in English, Spanish, and many other languages and contains more than 500,000 articles in Spanish.
Provides full-text for hundreds of US national, regional and international newspapers. Also offers television and radio news transcripts from major networks.
A collection of photographs, audio sound bites, graphics and text capturing historically important events. The Associated Press Images Collection is a primary source database from the Associated Press (AP), one of the oldest and largest news organizations in the world.
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Check out these tutorial / certificate programs:
Nexis Uni®: Learn the Fundamentals of Searching and Results—Level 1
Nexis Uni®: Learn the ABCs of Legal Research—Level 1
Nexis Uni®: Learn the Key Components of News Research— Level 2
Primary bibliographic database containing citations to articles regarding historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Indexes journals and citations of book and media reviews. Some full text is available.
Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. Includes Document Projects and Archives, Documents, Full Text Sources, Bibliographies, Biographies, Social Movements, Chronology, Subjects, Book Reviews, Teaching Tools, and Back Issues.
Primary source documents related to voting rights activist and civil rights leader, Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) spanning the time period from 1966-1978.
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