History, United States

TMU Libraries Omni Search
For optimum use, sign in. This search engine searches for journal articles (many are available electronically), books, e-books, theses and dissertations, and newspaper articles from some recent and a selection of archival newspapers. It indexes digitized content such as out-of-copyright books and journals that are available from sources such as The Internet Archive and The Hathi Trust. Omni facilitates discovery and borrowing of print books from other universities in Ontario excluding the University of Toronto.

Refine your search using the filters on the left.

For more advanced searching across a more targeted set of resources, you may want to try a discipline specific indexing/abstracting database or collection as listed in the next boxes.

Omni replaces the traditional catalogue that used to search for books, e-books, dvds, and other resources except for journal articles. Now, Omni can be used to look for known books, or when using the default (a keyword) search to find some relevant titles for an assignment. Whether using a Simple or Advanced search, you can use the filters on the left to limit to Resource Type: Book chapters, or, Books & eBooks. You can use the Browse Search with the drop down option for Library of Congress Subject Heading. This type of search is ideal for finding Books and Ebooks in our collection. It will display a selective index of subject headings most relevant to your search When you find book records, you can use the Subject terms in the record to link to similar items. If you want to find books, e-books and articles at the same time, consider using Omni, Advanced Search and Subject Contains ...

If you are interested in a specific geographic region of the USA, or a specific state, use the specific name in your search.

Examples using Omni, Browse, Library of Congress subject heading:

African Americans Southern States History
African Americans Civil rights Alabama History
Racially mixed children United States
Chicago (Ill.) History
Civil rights movements Mississippi
United States History Civil War 1861-1865

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

remain useful sources of quick information.  In addition to free sources such as Wikipedia, consider some of our licensed electronic content from publishers such as Oxford University Press, as well as printed items. 

Try using Omni, Advanced Search and Subject contains: [type a topical word or words] and either dictionaries, or, encyclopedias

Example Subject contains searches:

• african americans encyclopedias
• african americans dictionaries
• united states civil war encyclopedias
• united states history revolution dictionaries
• civil rights united states encyclopedias

Biographical information

Consider these resources:

• American National Biography (1999, 24 vols.), and, Supplement (2002-) (for people who are deceased)
• Who's Who in America (for living persons)
• Native Peoples A to Z: A Reference Guide to Native Peoples of the Western Hemisphere.  2nd ed. (2009, 8 vols.)
• Encyclopedia of North American Indians (print and online)
• Current Biography (1941-2015) (more recent editions available at the Toronto Public Library)

You can also try searching Omni using simple keywords:

united states biography dictionaries

Historical Maps and Atlases

United States Historical geography Maps [Omni, Browse, Library of Congress subject heading]

The David Rumsey Map Collection contains historical maps of North and South America.

The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library is digitizing many of the 200,000 maps in the collection. Search digital content under the Collections tab.

The Toronto Public Library (TPL) has ongoing subscriptions to many biographical resources as well other dictionaries and encyclopedias that are not available at TMU. Many of the resources are located at the Toronto Reference Library situated just north of Bloor Street on Yonge Street.