History Department Research Guide  Tags: history reference databases primary_sources  

Selected Tools for Evaluating
Scholarly Credentials in History*

adapted from David Murray, Temple University 

The purpose of this "online toolkit" is to assist history faculty and aspiring historians quantitatively evaluate their academic productivity.

The toolkit stresses three factors:

• book impact
• journal impact
• article-citation analysis

Why do this?

TENURE - Demonstrate to the tenure committee the impact of your scholarly work. Consider that monographs might not tell the whole story. Peer-reviewed journal articles and papers presented at conferences could hold some weight, particularly for newer scholars. 

CURIOSITY - Beyond the question of tenure a scholar might simply wish to assess the impact of his or her work on the discipline. I am available for individual meetings or group presentations to facilitate the use of the sources described in the toolkit.

*Database links no the Toolkit page are configured for Temple University users.  Select the appropriate database from the Alphabetical List for Manhattanville. 

If a search of CastleCat reveals that the library does not own the book you need, consider placing an ILL request through ILLiad.

Search WorldCat to obtain holdings information for libraries in North America and beyond.

I very much welcome all collection development requests from faculty, and will honor those requests to the extent allowed by the library budget. Please click here to submit a purchase request. 

Please see this page for instructions on how to place items on reserve for your course(s). Books will be placed on reserve at the Circulation Desk.  Journal articles, book chapters, sample exams, and class notes will be placed on electronic reserve only. Some guidelines to keep in mind:

• It can take 7-14 days to process a reserve request assuming that the libraries already own the item in question and that it is not checked out to someone else. Therefore, please submit your reserve request as early as possible, preferably before the start of the semester.

• Books not owned by Manhattanville can be purchased for reserve. Depending upon availability, it can take 4-8 weeks or more for a book to be ordered, acquired, cataloged and processed for reserve.

Information Literacy, a concept centered on outcomes-based learning, has been formally adopted into the General Education curriculum at Temple. With very little effort, History faculty can incorporate Information Literacy concepts into their own courses. (In fact, most already are.) Learn more about this critical concept:

Blogs authored by professional historians reveal a side of historical scholarship not found elsewhere. Here are several of my favoriate historian-generated blogs: