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Recommended
General Secondary Sources
For the history of science use generic Internet web pages, general encyclopedias
and popular sources with great caution; they are often highly oversimplified,
long out of date, or just plain unreliable, and quite likely grievously to mislead
you. (See "Evaluating
Online Resources.")
For history of science background information, use these more scholarly
general sources instead:
- Dictionary of Scientific Biography (DSB).
- The DSB is a valuable multivolume encyclopedia about major
figures in the history of science. Articles are signed, and include bibliographies.
Start here.
- OU locations: BL, main floor, reference area (Q 141 .D5;
photocopying allowed); and History of Science Collections, BL, fifth floor
(photocopying not allowed).
- Encyclopedia of Women in Science, ed. Marilyn Ogilvie.
- This wonderful 2-volume work provides a needed supplement to the DSB,
which omitted many women who made significant contributions to the development
of science.
- OU locations: BL, main floor, reference area (Q 141 .B5285;
photocopying allowed); and History of Science Collections, BL, 5th floor
(photocopying not allowed).
- Isis Cumulative Bibliographies (Isis CB).
- Directions for using this online
database.
- The IsisCB is an invaluable resource: it is the standard comprehensive
index of articles related to the history of science that are published in
all major scholarly journals. Use this online database to discover articles
that are available on a person, topic or event of your choice; then you
can read the article from the Library's
e-journals, in the library, or ILL it online. Along with the DSB, the
Isis CB is your most important reference for the history of science.
- Dictionary of the Middle Ages (DMA, BL main floor reference
area, D 114 .D5).
- Oxford English Dictionary. BL, main floor, reference area.
- The Oxford English Dictionary defines usages historically, with
dates and excerpts from period works. For historical purposes, a desktop
dictionary offers inadequate, present-day only, definitions (though it is
indispensable for checking spelling!).
- Note: the OED is online, but requires a subscription when used from off-campus.
On campus, however, even with your own laptop, you can log on for free:
http://dictionary.oed.com/.
Just enter the word you want in the search box on the right, click "Find
Word," and you'll have the best historical dictionary definitions at
your fingertips!
"There
are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half
of them are true." Sir Winston Churchill
