Background Information Databases
Search across large collections of scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries at once. Entries can be helpful for general understanding, keywords, and mining the reference sections.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new window
Designed to be an authoritative resource of reference content in a wide array of academic fields, including the humanities, social sciences, and science.
- Sage Knowledge This link opens in a new windowDictionaries, encyclopedias, guides and handbooks from a range of social science fields.
- Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new windowHandbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias in a wide range of subject areas, including Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation and World, Religion, Science, and Social Sciences.
Language
- Ethnologue: Languages of the World This link opens in a new window
A complete catalog of all of the world's known living languages. Researchers can browse by region or country or search for a language and identify where it is spoken, the number of speakers, the language's classification and related languages, and the current status of the language on a scale that indicates to what extent the language is thriving, developing, endangered, or dying.
- Endangered LanguagesThe Endangered Languages Project works to confront language endangerment by documenting, preserving, and teaching them.
Encyclopedias
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of AnthropologyISBN: 9780190854584Updated monthly, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology includes peer-reviewed entries and broad coverage of the field.
Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural AnthropologyCall Number: eBookISBN: 9780203866474Publication Date: 2009Written by leading scholars in the field, this comprehensive and readable resource gives anthropology students a unique guide to the ideas, arguments and history of the discipline.
Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily LifeCall Number: eBookISBN: 9781414448824Publication Date: 2017Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures And Daily Life, 3rd Edition, covers cultural groups in Asia and Oceania, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Five volumes, organized for quick reference by continent, cover history, politics, customs, religion, education, human rights issues, rites of passage, and much more for culture groups such as Kurds, Amish, Germans and more than 530 others.The Encyclopedia of World Cultures
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0816118086Publication Date: 2002This reference set lists and describes more than 1,500 global cultures. Based on research of social scientists, it is the source for historical, social, political, economic, linguistic, religious, and other information on virtually every existing culture.
Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, 2-Volume SetISBN: 0816071586Publication Date: 2009This resource includes about 1,400 entries on the major peoples that have maintained a cultural identity in the area - from ancient to modern times - summarizing their history, migration, culture, belief system, social organization, and relationship to other peoples.
Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and OceaniaISBN: 9780816071098Publication Date: 2008An A-to-Z reference to the peoples of the Asia-Pacific region east of the Caspian Sea, not including the countries of the Middle East. More than 400 entries cover the major peoples that maintained a cultural identity in the area, describing their history, migration, culture, belief system, social organization, and relationship to other peoples.
