History: Middle East: Reference

Materials which are referred to for brief or general information. Examples include:

• Background or overview synopses (encyclopedia)
• Definitions (dictionary)
• Synonyms (thesaurus)
• Statistics
• Biographical Details
• Maps (atlas)

Reference resources are organized in an order that aids searching (alphabetically, chronologically, etc).  Most include an index which points users to the appropriate section.  Tips for searching:

1. Decide on your search terms
2. Try searching with them
3. If not satisfied with the results, try searching a synonym or related idea

Things to watch out for:

• Is the computer searching only the title/header of the entries or the full-text of the information?  You will get more results, but more of them will be irrelabent if you are searching the full-text.
• Are you searching for a proper noun (name, place,...)?  Make sure that the spelling is correct and try variations if it originated in a foreign language.
• Searching for something by date?  This is trickier than it sounds.  If possible, search for an event name or topic rather than a date, e.g. civil rights movement or hippies or flower children rather than 1960s.

The state of the Middle East: an atlas of conflict and resolution
Call Number: G 2205 .S653 2006

The Middle East
Call Number: DS 63.1 .M484 2005

The Political Dictionary of Modern Middle East
Call Number: Ref DS 43 .K67 1995

Historical Dictionary of Iran
Call Number: Ref DS 270 .L67 2007

The Middle East Under Rome
Call Number: DS 62.25 .S3713 2005