To access ebooks and journal articles, you will be prompted for your Gettysburg College login (your user name is the start of your email address).
Use the "Sign In" link in the upper-right corner before you search to skip login requests for some resources and save/pin items.
We have a service called Interlibrary Loan that allows Gettysburg College students, faculty, and staff to borrow materials unavailable at Musselman Library from other libraries around the world. This service is fully integrated with MUSCAT Plus, the library catalog. Members of the campus community (including you!) are able to make and manage requests through their library account. See the tabs above for step-by-step directions on requesting materials.
You may also submit requests directly based on a citation using this form: https://gettysburg.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/blankIll?vid=01GETTYSBURG_INST:MUSCAT&lang=en
Questions? Send an email to illform@gettysburg.edu and a member of ILL staff will reach out to help. You may also call 717-337-7016 to speak directly to ILL staff. Please note, the ILL office is open from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM Monday through Friday.
Make sure that we do not have access to the article by searching for it by title in Muscat Plus or a library database.
Search MUSCAT Plus first to see if available via Musselman Library. This will let you see what we own or do not own.
If we only have a print copy...If the library has a copy of the book but only in print, first check to see if an ebook copy is available freely and legally on the web that you can access immediately – e.g., items published before 1928 that are now in the public domain and freely available online via platforms like Project Gutenberg and/or items available to checkout via the Internet Archive.
If not available online, sign in to your Muscat Plus library
account using your campus credentials.
Once signed in, the option to request a scan of a book chapter should appear in the MUSCAT Plus item record (see images). Please enter as much information as you know, including the chapter's page range.
Please note: Requests for chapter scans must be in compliance with U.S. copyright law. All requests will be assessed by library staff using Fair Use Guidelines. In general, requesting a small amount of a copyrighted work favors fair use. We are happy to scan a specific chapter or pages, but we cannot scan significant portions of a single book.
Lastly, if you need help identifying which portion of a book would be most helpful for you, we are happy to scan the table of contents or a portion of the index. If assistance is still needed, please reach out to the library’s research help desk at ask@gettysburg.edu.
There may be occasions when you would prefer to use a print copy of a book. In this case, search by title on Worldcat.org to see if a library near you holds a copy. If they do, select "Request Item" to receive the book through Interlibrary Loan at your local library.
As a MA student at Gettysburg College, you have access to a wealth of primary sources, many of which are available online. A selection of resources are included in the following tabs.
For a full listing of available digital collections, please refer to the A-Z list of primary source digital collections.
The general History research guide also allows you to browse collections by source type, time period, or geographical region.
You can also locate published personal narratives in MUSCAT Plus, the library catalog, using a keyword or subject search.
Using a keyword search, you can add an event, person, place, or other detail AND any of the words below.
|
-- diaries -- correspondence -- sources |
-- personal narratives -- interviews -- documents |
Once you're looking at a title, look at the subjects at the bottom of the record. Clicking on the subject with your term will retrieve related titles.
Ex: United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives
Reading book reviews can be a very helpful part of identifying sources for your historiography. Databases will index reviews that appear in scholarly journals or other publications. The process below for Muscat Plus and JSTOR will be similar in other databases.
1. In the "everything" search of Muscat Plus, search for the book title, author, or topic.
2. Once you have a set of search results, expand the Source Types menu on the left side of your screen and select Reviews.
3. The remaining results should all be reviews. Select one results and scroll down to the full text availability. Click a resource listed in this section to download the PDF.
1. When in JSTOR, click Advanced Search to the right of the search box.
2. Enter your terms, searching for the book title, author, or topic.
3. Under Narrow Results, mark Review in Item Types. Click Submit Advanced Search to run your search.
While dissertations and theses may be a part of your historiography, they can be challenging to access since print copies are often only held by the library at the degree-granting institution. Some recent dissertations may be available online, but it depends on the university.
As a result, we are unable to complete requests for digital scans of sections of a print dissertation or thesis via interlibrary loan.
If you're seeking a copy of a PhD dissertation or MA thesis:
