Help with your History Day project is only a click away at your library! There are lots of free resources on the library website which you can access from home - and you can also ask your library staff for personalized help!

Getting Started

• National History Day Resources: MELSA National History Day Rules, topic examples, organization helpers, and more.
• Researching History Day Tutorial: Watch this video on ELM (Electronic Library for Minnesota) resources.

What are you looking for?

Background Information and General Resources

• American Decades Primary Sources (1900s) and American Decades (2000-2010): Main issues, themes, movements, and events by each decade. 
• Britannica School Edition for Middle School or High School: Find background information on your topic in these encyclopedias.
• Biography in Context: Biographical information on people throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. 
• Great Events from History - the 20th Century 1971-2000: Shorter essays on the events that shaped the course of the history of the world. 
• Salem Press History: Contains electronic versions of printed books all about American history.
• Student Resources in Context: Most topics will have their own page with a Primary Resources link. 

Books

• Scott County Library Catalog: You'll find plenty of secondary sources and some primary sources in your library's collection. Just request any copy and we'll send it to your local library. 
• MNLINK: Can't find what you need at Scott County Library? Request books from libraries all over Minnesota. It's free!

Newspaper Articles

• Chronicling America - Historic American Newspapers: Searchable text of select American newspapers from 1836-1922, including several from Minnesota. 
• Historical New York Times: Complete back issues (including images) from the first issue in 1851 through 2010. 
• MasterFile Complete: Full text magazines, images, primary source documents, and reference books.
• ProQuest Newsstand: Need newspaper articles from other areas of the United States? This resource lets you search for full-text articles from hundreds of newspapers. 

Pictures, Letters, and Other Primary Source Documents

• Minnesota Reflections: Search the collection of more than 40,000 images and documents depicting the history of Minnesota. 
• Digital Public Library for America (DPLA): Search hundreds of digital library collections from all over the United States for images, documents, archives, manuscripts, books, and even sounds! 

As always, check copyright information before taking an image for your project.