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Go to Black Studies Center

The following quick-start guide has been created for CSUN students and researchers. For more information on using Black Studies Center, consult their Help link.

Jump to: Access & Requirements | Searching | Results | My Archive

Description

Scope

• Black Studies Center (BSC) is a cross-searchable database that includes scholarly articles, current commentary and historical primary documents researching the past, present and future of African-Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. Black Studies Center includes the following three resources:

Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience

• Examines interdisciplinary topics on the African experience
• In-depth essays accompanied by detailed timelines contributed by leading academic experts
• Important research articles, images, film clips and more

International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP)

• Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary, spanning cultural, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of vital importance to the Black Studies discipline
• Includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from scholarly journals and newsletters from the United States, Africa, and the Carribbean
• Full text coverage of core Black Studies periodicals

The Chicago Defender

• An influential black newspaper, founded in May 1905 that became the most widely-read with more than two-thirds of its readership based outside Chicago
• Full text backfile from 1910 to 1975 available through the BSC database

Black Literature Index

• Access to the electronic Black Literature microfiche collection
• Search over 70,000 bibliographic citations for fiction, poetry and literary reviews published in 110 black periodicals and newspapers between 1827-1940.
• Links available to relevant full text articles for citations to content from the Chicago Defender

Access and Software Requirements

CSUN users (students, faculty and staff) only.

Searching

Quick Search

The Quick Search, located on the top left corner of the screen, allows you to quickly search all of the content in BSC. You may type in a word or phrase into the search box then click the red Go! button.

Search All

Search All provides additional search options and limiters, allowing you to narrow your results.

1. Click Search in the (horizontal) menu bar to go to the search page.
2. Type your search term (word or phrase) into the keyword search box. All searches are case-sensitive.
3. You may search all BSC databases by title, author or publication year.
4. You may also search within specific content types by selecting an individual database by choosing the Content Type at the bottom of the search page. By default, BSC searches all content types including links to Journals and Newspapers.

Results

Results will be divided into the following categories: Essays, Resources, Timeline, Multimedia, Journals, and Newspapers.

Your search results will display in citation form and will include two links underneath each citation. One will allow you to access the full text, or PDF file, depending upon the results found.

Managing Results

You have the option to create a marked list by checking the boxes next to individual results. Marked lists can later be downloaded, printed, emailed or saved to My Archive for future use (see below). When forwarding your marked records via email, you have the option of selecting citation formats as well as writing notes about the record itself. Additionally, you have access to a durable URL through which to later access the article.

My Archive

My Archive allows you to create your own personalized area of Black Studies Center, in which you can store saved searches and selected items between sessions. To store your saved searches Create a profile and then add subsequent Search Results to your list by clicking on the Add to Marked List box on the Results page.

Once your My Archive profile is set up, you can manage the saved records in various ways. This includes deleting individual records, adding notes, and forwarding one, or all, records via email.

For additional questions, please contact the Pan-African Studies Librarian, Lynn Lampert, at lynn.lampert@csun.edu.