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Background Information
Reference books can provide background information on various topics, helping you to better understand your topic. Typically entries on topics will be brief, between 1-20 pages, and can help you find related topics and areas.
Background information can help you learn about the history, scope, depth, and breadth of your topic. It can be useful to help you understand a subject, as well as give you information to help you narrow a topic.
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An online library of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference books that are easily searchable by topic. Use to research people, places, topics, and more.
Reference Books
These titles are located on the second floor of the L.W. Tyree Library and are available for in-library use only. Use the call number to locate the item. If you need information from one of these books from an SF center, please call for assistance at 352-395-5409.
Some reference books are available online. Look for the word 'eBook' in the call number to identify eBooks. To read the eBook, click the title and then log in.
Unless otherwise specified, these titles are located on the second floor of the L.W. Tyree Library and are available for in-library use only. Use the call number to locate the item. If you need information from one of these books from an SF center, please call for assistance at 352-395-5409.
Africana by Call Number: DT14.A37435 2005Ninety years after W.E.B. Du Bois first articulated the need for "the equivalent of a black Encyclopedia Britannica," Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., realized his vision by publishing Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience in 1999. This new, greatly expanded edition of the original work broadens the foundation provided by Africana. Including more than one million new words, Africana has been completely updated and revised.
Civil Rights in the United States by Call Number: REF E184.A1 C47 2000This work examines the efforts of our diverse nation to secure civil rights for its entire people including African Americans, Native Americans, Chicanos, women, Asian Americans, workers, gays and lesbians, children, seniors and numerous others.
A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States by Call Number: E185 .A58 1990 (3rd floor)Contemporary writings illuminating the struggles and achievements of African Americans since the seventeenth century are presented with brief historical notes.
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History by Call Number: E185.E54 2006An authoritative and comprehensive information about Black history, figures, and accomplishments throughout the Americas.
Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present by Call Number: E185.E5453 2009 v. 1-5Focusing on the making of African American society from the 1896 "separate but equal" ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson up to the contemporary period, this encyclopedia traces the transition from the Reconstruction Era to the age of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Brown ruling that overturned Plessy, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ascendant influence of African American culture on the American cultural landscape.
Historical Dictionary of African American Cinema by Call Number: PN1995.9.N4 B433 2007Hundreds of films are covered in the Historical Dictionary of African American Cinema, which includes everything from The Birth of a Nation to Crash. In addition to the films, brief biographies of African American actors and actresses can be found in this reference. This book provides a better understanding of the role African Americans played in film history.
Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance by Call Number: PS153.N5 B675 2006A broad artistic movement of the 1920s and early '30s, the Harlem Renaissance was one of the most productive eras in American literary history. Concentrating on the literary side of the movement - the writers, works, periodicals, editors, publishers, critics, and related topics - Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance provides authoritative coverage and unique insight into the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.
African Americans in Global Affairs by Publication Date: 2010The repression historically faced by African Americans has had an important effect on the nature of the group’s participation in foreign affairs. This book offers a much-needed and long-overdue survey of the field, setting the stage for further exploration and analysis.
African Americans in the Performing Arts by Publication Date: 2010These biographical dictionaries highlight the lives and accomplishments of notable individuals, past and present.
The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature by Publication Date: 2001A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers-from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson.- Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History by Publication Date: 2005An authoritative and comprehensive information about Black history, figures, and accomplishments throughout the Americas.
Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations by Publication Date: 2001With information on over 500 organizations, their founders and membership, this unique encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on the history of African-American activism.
