Corona Virus Information for Students, Faculty, and Staff: This is My Research Project!
Doing Research on Epidemics and Plagues
Got a research project due? Want to do it on infections diseases? Here are some ways to get started.
Doing a project only on the Coronavirus might be a challenge, because the information is so new, but if you expand your thinking a little to look at epidemics and pandemics a little more generally, you will certainly be able to find enough information for a good paper. Or perhaps you've been inspired to find out about historic plagues and epidemics.
Reference Sources
Use these tools to find introductory information.
Off Campus access username and password can be found in Blackboard on the
Institution Page section for Student Tools to Stay Connected at Atlantic Cape or you can Contact the library for username and password.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Credo Reference provides access to a large number of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and other reference books. Subjects covered include art, biography, history, literature, music, religion, and science and technology. Includes a spider map of related subjects
- Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) This link opens in a new window
Standard, academic reference sources on a variety of topics. Some sources in this collection are better for historic than for current information.
Key Words for Getting Started
General Terms
epidemic
pandemic
infectious diseases
vaccination
Recent information
coronavirus
SARS
AIDS
HIV
Ebola
Historical Information
influenza (1918)
smallpox
polio
tuberculosis
cholera
bubonic plague
black death
Some Books from our Online Collections
Off Campus access username and password can be found in Blackboard on the
Institution Page section for Student Tools to Stay Connected at Atlantic Cape or you can Contact the library for username and password.
SARS War by
On 12 March 2003, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a global alert on the outbreak of a new form of pneumonia-like disease with symptoms that are similar to those of the common flu. This illness, officially known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), is potentially fatal and highly contagious, and has spread quickly to many parts of the world in a matter of a few weeks. Aided by globalisation and the ease of air travel today, the disease has now been reported in many countries, such as China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, the US and some parts of Europe, with a large number of infections and a significant number of deaths.In this book, the global SARS outbreak is traced and described, with a focus on the regions where the most infections have been identified. An overview of the whole saga is presented: how the disease spreads; how governments react; how societies and people cope and how health experts work fervently to identify the virus and search for a cure.In addition, the book contains guidelines on what a person or organisation can do to reduce the risk of contracting the deadly illness. It includes precautionary measures disseminated by various health authorities and preventive herbal concoctions recommended by Chinese physicians, presented in an easy-to-read manner. Furthermore, insights of experts are provided.This book aims to give critical information on SARS. It is a must for people who want to find out more about the disease and how to reduce the risk of contracting it.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9789812384331Publication Date: 2003-04-01
At the Epicentre by
A discussion of the scientific, political, social and economic aspects of the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong in 2003.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9789622096837Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Emerging Viral Diseases by
In the past half century, deadly disease outbreaks caused by novel viruses of animal origin - Nipah virus in Malaysia, Hendra virus in Australia, Hantavirus in the United States, Ebola virus in Africa, along with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), several influenza subtypes, and the SARS (sudden acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronaviruses - have underscored the urgency of understanding factors influencing viral disease emergence and spread. Emerging Viral Diseases is the summary of a public workshop hosted in March 2014 to examine factors driving the appearance, establishment, and spread of emerging, re-emerging and novel viral diseases; the global health and economic impacts of recently emerging and novel viral diseases in humans; and the scientific and policy approaches to improving domestic and international capacity to detect and respond to global outbreaks of infectious disease. This report is a record of the presentations and discussion of the event.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9780309313971Publication Date: 2015-04-19
Epidemics and History by
This book is a major and wide-ranging study of the great epidemic scourges of humanity--plague, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, cholera, and yellow fever/malaria--over the last six centuries. It is also much more. Sheldon Watts, a cultural and social historian who has spent much of his career studying and teaching in the world's South, applies a wholly original perspective to the study of global disease, exploring the connections between the movement of epidemics and the manifestations of imperial power in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and in European homelands. He shows how the perceptions of whom a disease targeted changed over time and effected various political and medical responses. He argues that not only did Western medicine fail to cure the diseases that its own expansion engendered, but that imperial medicine was in fact an agent and tool of empire. Watts examines the relationship between the pre-modern and modern medical profession and such epidemic disasters as the plague in western Europe and the Middle East; leprosy in the medieval West and in the nineteenth-century tropical world; the spread of smallpox to the New World in the age of exploration; syphilis and nonsexual diseases in Europe's connection with Asia; cholera in India during British rule; and malaria in the Atlantic Basin during the eras of slavery and Social Darwinism. He investigates in detail the relation between violent environmental changes and disease, and between disease and society, both in the material sphere and in the minds and spirits of rulers and ruled. This book will become the standard account of the way diseases--arising through chance, through reckless environmental change engineered by man, or through a combination of each--were interpreted in Western Europe and in the colonized world.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9780300080872Publication Date: 1999-11-10
The Atlas of Disease by Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9781781317907Publication Date: 2018-11-27Provides a fascinating cartographic insight into the worlds most deadly diseases and epidemics.
American Pandemic by
Between the years 1918 and1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in the United States. American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that endured. Focused on the primary players in this drama--patients and their families, friends, and community, public health experts, and health care professionals--historian Nancy K. Bristow draws on multiple perspectives to highlight the complex interplay between social identity, cultural norms, memory, and the epidemic. Bristow has combed a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, novels, newspapers, magazines, photographs, government documents, and health care literature. She shows that though the pandemic caused massive disruption in the most basic patterns of American life, influenza did not create long-term social or cultural change, serving instead to reinforce the status quo and the differences and disparities that defined American life. As the crisis waned the pandemic slipped from the nation's public memory. The helplessness and despair Americans had suffered during the pandemic, Bristow notes, was a story poorly suited to a nation focused on optimism and progress. For countless survivors, though, the trauma never ended, shadowing the remainder of their lives with memories of loss. This book lets us hear these long-silent voices, reclaiming an important chapter in the American past.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9780199811342Publication Date: 2012-04-30
Viruses, Plagues, and History by
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. Oldstone begins with smallpox, polio, and measles. Nearly 300 million people were killed by smallpox in this century alone and the author presents a vivid account of the long campaign to eradicate this lethal killer. Oldstone then describes the fascinating viruses that have captured headlines in more recent years: Ebola, Hantavirus, mad cow disease (a frightening illness made worse by government mishandling and secrecy), and, of course, AIDS. And he tells us of the many scientists watching and waiting even now for the next great plague, monitoring influenza strains to see whether the deadly variant from 1918--a viral strain that killed over 20 million people in 1918-1919--will make a comeback. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile, and fully updates the original text with new findings on particular viruses. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies. Oldstone's book is a vivid history of a fascinating field, and a highly reliable dispatch from an eminent researcher on the front line of this ongoing campaign.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9780195327311Publication Date: 2009-11-02
The Black Death by
It came out of Central Asia, killing one-third of the European population. And among the survivors, a new skepticism arose about life and God and human authority. Here, in this essay by British historian Philip Ziegler, is the story of the plague that ravaged Europe.
Call Number: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)ISBN: 9781612309989Publication Date: 2016-12-01
That's just a sample. There are many more.
Search Atlantic Cape eBook Collections
Look for Articles
Off Campus access username and password can be found in Blackboard on the
Institution Page section for Student Tools to Stay Connected at Atlantic Cape or you can Contact the library for username and password.
- Coronavirus Research Database (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
This database contains open access content related to COVID-19 and other coronaviruses from:
- scholarly journal articles
- preprints
- conference proceedings
- dissertations
- the world’s leading publishers including
- Public Library of Science
- BioMed Central
- Springer Nature Publisher Group
- Taylor & Francis.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Large interdisciplinary database that contains articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals, trade magazines, and popular magazines.
It offers broad subject coverage, including anthropology biology chemistry, computer science, ethnic and multicultural studies, food science, general science, geography, law, mathematics, music, physics, psychology, religion, women's studies, and many more.
- Access World News This link opens in a new window
Newspapers from the United States and around the world.
- New York Times This link opens in a new windowNews about the current pandemic, or historical news back to 1851. Set up your own personal account, using the instructions on the library home page.
- CINAHL with Full Text This link opens in a new window
This resource is restricted to students in the Nursing and Health Sciences programs.
It is funded by the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V).
CINAHL® with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and authoritative source of full text articles for more than 610 nursing & allied health journals.
- LitCovidFrom the National Institutes of Health, a bibliography of the latest published research on the Coronavirus. Not all of these articles are available as open-access resources. If you would like to obtain access to an article that is behind a paywall, please e-mail the citation to the library, and ask for an interlibrary loan.
- New England Journal of MedicineAll research on the Coronavirus published in the NEJM is available for free at this time.
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
From the National Library of Medicine, a free version of the MedLine database. Selected full text available.
- Biomed Central This link opens in a new window
Free full text access to selected biomedical journals.
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers scholarly publications in sociology, social work, and related fields. Contains 2.3 million articles and other materials (64% in full text) with deep coverage from 1960 and some back to 1882.
- Military and Government Collection This link opens in a new windowUse for information about WWI and the influenza epidemic.
- Medicine and Health Sciences Commons This link opens in a new windowFor the adventurous researcher. Many full-text items available for free, but the search tool is primitive.
Credits
This guide was developed by Leslie Murtha, Atlantic Cape Community College Libraries.
Published 2020.last updated 6/21/2021.