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Archives & Special Collections

Research Tools and Guides

Helpful Tutorials

Citation Guide

A guide on citing materials from manuscript collections.

Comparison of Archival Research Tools

This chart, developed by Fred Burchsted, a librarian at Harvard University, shows the relative strengths of Digital Public Library of America, WorldCat, ArchiveGrid, SNAC, and ArchiveFinder for discovering archival collections. 

Finding Aid Tutorial

A finding aid is the standard method used to describe the contents of a manuscript collection. This guide explains how to use the finding aid to find materials in a manuscript collection.

Finding New York City Documents (Columbia University)

This is a selective guide to resources at Columbia University Libraries and on the Internet, for locating the official publications and documents of New York City and its agencies.

Guide to Researching Historic Buildings in NYC (City of New York)

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has created a Guide to Research Resources to help you learn more about your historic building. This guide is intended to assist you in finding construction dates, architects, and original owners; alterations to buildings and changes in ownership over time; the names of building residents; and historic photos, among other information.

Tools for Primary Source Research

 The American Memory Project (Library of Congress)

American Memory is a gateway to the Library of Congress’s vast resources of digitized American historical materials comprising more than 9 million items.

Finding New York City Documents (Columbia University)

This is a selective guide to resources at Columbia University Libraries and on the Internet, for locating the official publications and documents of New York City and its agencies.

The Making of America (Cornell University) The Making of America (University of Michigan)

The Making of America is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. It is a joint project of Cornell University and the University of Michigan. At this time, it appears that the contributions to the project from each university must be searched separately.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) (RLG)

This catalog provides access to nearly 700,000 catalog records available in the Research Libraries Group (RLG) Union Catalog describing archival and manuscript collections and items in research libraries, museums, state archives, and historical societies located throughout North America and around the world.

New York State Newspaper Project (NYS Library)

This site has an index of the New York State newspapers available on microfilm. It includes information on where the film can be accessed for research purposes.

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Materials at CSI

Staten Island History Books in the Collection: A Selective Annotated Bibliography

This guide provides an annotated bibliographical for several books on Staten Island History in our collections.

A Guide to Willowbrook State School Resources at the CSI Library

This guide provides detailed information about library holdings related to the Willowbrook State School

9/11 Documentation Project

This serves as a guide to resources, found at CSI and other institutions, relating to Staten Island's response to the September 11th attacks.

Statistical Data for Staten Island