Secondary Sources as a Leads to Primary Sources

Sociological Abstracts (1952-Present)
Index to articles, conference proceedings and book reviews published in sociology journals and related fields such as anthropology, economics, education, linguistics, medicine, philosophy, political science, and social psychology.

Historical Abstracts (1955-Present)
An index to books, scholarly articles, and dissertations in world history (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Covers approximately 1,800 journals.

America: History and Life (1964-Present )
An index to scholarly articles, dissertations, and book reviews on the history and culture of North America (United States and Canada) from prehistory to the present. Covers approximately 1,800 journals.

Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science) (1956-Present)
One of three databases included in Web of Science. Multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the social sciences. Disciplines covered include: Anthropology, History, Law, Linguistics, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Women's Studies

PAIS International (1915-Present)
An index of articles, books, websites and government documents that cover global public policy, social issues and the social sciences.

Locating Articles

While searching one of the above databases, you will want to determine whether the Williams College Libraries own the journals containing the articles you wish to read.

Many databases have this icon. When you click on the icon in the database, it will attempt to find an electronic version of the text in our collection. If it doesn't find an electronic version, it will give you a screen with a link to FRANCIS and WILL. The FRANCIS link sends a pre-formatted search into FRANCIS to find print or other electronic subscriptions in our collection. The WILL link provides an automatically filled-in interlibrary loan request form to get a copy from another library.

If the database you are using does not have the Find Text icon, you can do a journal title search in FRANCIS. If we do not have an electronic or print subscription, you can submit an interlibrary loan request through WILL.