Anthropology

Facts and Background Information Selected print and electronic encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc.
Books
Locate items in the library catalog and other libraries.
Articles
Use indexes to search for articles in journals, proceedings, etc.
Websites
Recommended academic, professional, and learned societies sites, and more.
Contact a Librarian

Below are a few major, frequently used sources for the study of anthropology. Interdisciplinary indexes such as Expanded Academic ASAP, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Social Sciences Index also cover anthropology. These can be found in the research guide to General Social Sciences.

Please consult with a reference librarian for help with many sources in your topic. Internet resources require a Tufts I.D. number for off-campus access (authorized users statement).

 

Facts and Background Information     [back to top]

Subject specific reference materials can help you to gain broad-based knowledge of your field, through vocabulary, factual information, additional references, and bibliographies. Some suggested print sources:

Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution

Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology

Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life

Ethnic Relations: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia

Oxford Islamic Studies Online
A comprehensive source of articles on religious and political aspects of Islam and the Islamic world, including the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, the Oxford History of Islam, and a concordance and two translations of the Qur’an.

Doing a subject search in the catalog allows you to retrieve specific types of sources.

Ethnology - Encyclopedias

Anthropology Dictionaries

In addition, the following electronic resource provides valuable information:

Cross-Cultural CD. Human Relations Area Files.
[CD-ROM - Request at Tisch reference desk]
Includes full-text files on human sexuality; marriage; family; crime and social problems; old age; death; childhood and adolescence; religion; and socialization and education.

Find Books     [back to top]

You can search for books about anthropology in the library catalog in several ways:

Keyword Searching

Type in words that describe your topic:

Anthropology and Mexico

Anthropology and Culture and Medicine

Subject searching

If you know the Library of Congress subject heading used to describe your area of research, you can search for a particular subject. If you don't know the Library of Congress Subject Headings, speak to a librarian for help. Some examples of subject searches are:

Boas, Franz, 1858-1942

Ethnomusicology

Human geography

Physical anthropology

Books on anthropology can be found under the call number range GN1-890. The range of topics covered by anthropology can be extraordinarily broad. For help in browsing the collection, consult with one of the reference librarians.

Find books in other libraries

To locate books in other Boston Library Consortium libraries and request to borrow them, use the Boston Library Consortium Catalogs. To locate books in many libraries throughout the world, use FirstSearch's WorldCat index.

Find Articles     [back to top]

For more information on searching article indexes, see our Database Searching Tips (also available in PDF).

Alt-PressWatch (How to search)
Full-text articles from magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press. Coverage includes a broad range of critical issues confronting contemporary society, including ecology and the environment, grassroots organizing, labor, indigenous peoples, public policy, genetics, and much more.

America: History and Life 1964- (How to search)
Scholarly literature on the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada.

America: History and Life 1964- (PRINT)
Indexes and abstracts journal articles and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history and culture. Includes material on North American Indians.

Anthropological Index Online 1970-93
Indexes more than 750 anthropological periodicals.

Anthropology Plus (How to search)
Anthropology Plus brings together into one resource the highly respected Anthropological Literature from Harvard University, and Anthropological Index, Royal Anthropological Institute from the UK. It covers over 2,500 journals and begins coverage in the late nineteenth century.

AnthroSource
A service developed by the American Anthropological Association containing a complete electronic archive of all AAA journals through 2003, as well as current issues of eleven critical peer-reviewed publications.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index 1974-
The online version. Provides author, subject and citation access to journal articles and book reviews in the arts and humanities. Coverage from 1974. Part of Web of Science.

Current Contents Connect 2001-
A current awareness database with a multidisciplinary focus, covering over 8,000 of the world's scholarly journals grouped into the following broad disciplinary areas: Agriculture, Biology, & Environmental Sciences; Art & Humanities; Clinical Medicine; Engineering, Computing & Technology; Life Sciences; Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences; Social & Behavioral Sciences. Also included is access to ISI Current Web Contents.

Ethnic NewsWatch (How to search)
Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of newspapers and periodicals from the ethnic, minority and Native American press. The database allows both full-text and indexed searching. Search pages are available in English and Spanish.

Expanded Academic ASAP
Articles from more than 1,500 scholarly, trade, and general-interest publications, including national news and commentary. Coverage is from 1980 to current and is updated daily. Some full text is available.

GenderWatch (How to search)
GenderWatch is a full-text collection of international sources, including journals, special reports and conference proceedings on a wide range of women's issues. It includes archival materials dating back to the 1970s. GenderWatch allows both full-text and indexed searching.

Humanities Index 1974- (PRINT)
Index to humanities journals. Includes folklore, linguistics, and archaeology.

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
The IBSS has more than two million references to articles and books going back to 1951 in the social sciences. It is produced by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Social Sciences Citation Index 1974-
The online version. Provides author, subject and citation access to journal articles and book reviews in the social sciences. Coverage from 1974. Part of Web of Science.

Social Sciences Index 1974- (PRINT)
Index to social science journals. Includes social anthropology.

Sociological Abstracts 1963- (How to search)
Provides citations and abstracts from over 2000 journals, dissertations, conference papers, books and book reviews. This electronic index provides citations and abstracts from Social Planning/Policy & Development Abstracts as well. Updated six times a year.

Electronic journals

Periodicals held by Tufts are listed in the catalog. Holdings in all formats are unified in one record, and most entries for journals held in digital format contain a hyperlink to the source; searches in the catalog enable one to follow these links directly. A supplementary list of electronic journals is on the Tisch homepage under Electronic Journals. For an example of a catalog search for a journal, set the catalog's Type of Search to "Journal Title," and type in Annual Review of Anthropology.

Many anthropology journals held in digital format are parts of Project Muse or JSTOR. Others can be found in Science Direct, Blackwell-Synergy, or Wiley Interscience. Although these databases include search engines for the journals they contain, the indexes listed above are the most comprehensive and authoritative sources for the literature of the discipline, and frequently link directly to the journal article itself.

Websites     [back to top]

Tufts University Department of Sociology & Anthropology

American Anthropological Association Homepage
Contains information on the AAA and its publications, links to other anthropological sites on the Web, and information on jobs and grants.

Anthropology and American Indian Sites on the Internet
Provides links to American Indian and anthropology sites in all fields of anthropology.

ArchNet (University of Connecticut Anthropology Dept.)

Ethnologue

Contact a Librarian     [back to top]

Christopher Barbour. Contact for questions about library collections.
Connie Reik. Contact for reference questions and instruction requests.

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