Theater Arts and Drama
For additional assistance, contact Joseph Diaz
The World of the Play
Environmental Facts: geographical information, date, season, time & economic, political & social environments
Print sources
UA Library Catalog
Start with a keyword search on your topic. Once you find a few sources, look at the subject headings. Search the subject headings to find more on your topic.
Go to the Main Library Microfilm section (floor 1, behind photocopy); pick a newspaper; locate the date you need; pull out a few microfilms and browse them.
Locate the call number (use the catalog to do this) for a magazine that was published during the time period by doing a journal title search in the catalog (Life, Time, Harpers Weekly , etc); go to the stacks and browse the year you need.
Here a few titles that list historical events in chronological order that you might want to check:
The Big Book of Dates (electronic book)
Chronology of world history. Info Commons Ref. D11 .M39 1999 4 vols.
The people's chronology : a year-by-year record of human events from prehistory to the present Main Ref. D11 .T83 1994
The women's chronology : a year-by-year record from prehistory to the present. Main Lib. HQ1122 .T73 1994
Online sources
Online sources are helpful in finding historical information, but browsing is not always a feature; you'll have to use keywords to find information. Also, limit your search in each of these to the time period you need.
Facts on File World News Digest
Online (1940-present) or in paper at D410 .F3 (older copies in Main stacks, most recent 5 years in Information Commons Reference). This source covers economic, political, and social environments. For example, it includes Presidents' "State of the Union Address," a "Best Seller Lists," which incudes hit T.V. programs, popular music, books.
America: History & Life
Use the CLIO Notes section to see chronology of event.
Readers Guide Retrospective,1890 through 1982
Contains comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. No full-text. The paper copies are at AI3 .R48 Info Commons Ref (from 1900-present)
Historical New York Times 1851-current until last 3 years.
Complete version of the New York Times, including viewing of entire pages as well as specific articles. Some of the images will be blocked due to copyright restrictions, so you might have to use the microfilm.
Complete version of the New York Times, including viewing of entire pages as well as specific articles
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
Great place for news articles from national and regional newspapers, wire services, transcripts from NPR, etc. The database includes national and regional news sources.
If you're searching for information in a particular geographic region, then for
Step One: Select a news category use the pull-down menu and select U.S. News
Step Two: Select a news source use the pull-down menu to choose either a region or a state
Step Three: Enter search terms Leave the default fields as they are: Headline & Lead Paragraph.
Otherwise, use the General News in Step One and Major papers in Step Two.
Academic Search Complete
Covers a broad range of disciplines including general academic, business, social sciences, humanities, general sciences, education, and multi-cultural topics. Offers full text coverage for 1,360 journals and indexing and abstracts for 2,920 journals.