Choosing a Neighborhood
- SF Chronicle Guide to San Francisco NeighborhoodsA very handy guide to most of the neighborhoods in San Francisco.
- SF Chronicle Guide to East Bay NeighborhoodsInformation about neighborhoods in Oakland, Berkeley, and Albany.
San Francisco Public Library Resources
The San Francisco Public Library is a great place for researching neighborhoods, both on their web site, and in their physical libraries.
- SFPL Home PageIf you live in California you can get a library card from SFPL which gives you remote access to many great databases in a variety of topics, as well as ebooks and other digital collections. If you are local, you can use any materials at any branch library.
- Neighborhood BranchesNeighborhood branches may have local papers and community information files. They might collect information on the history or current conditions of the neighborhood.
- San Francisco Community Services DirectoryInformation about social service organizations in the neighborhoods. (Please note that this directory is maintained for historical reference only. No records have been updated since March 2009.)
- SFPL History CenterHas lots of information on San Francisco neighborhood history, and helpful librarians too!
- San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection
More than 250,000 photographs of San Francisco and California. It includes photographs of famous San Francisco personalities, buildings, streets, and neighborhoods.
Historical San Francisco and California
- California Historical SocietyLots of information and historical documents about all aspects of San Francisco and California history!
- Shaping San Franciscois a participatory community history project documenting and archiving overlooked stories and memories of San Francisco.
- FoundSFFoundSF is a project of Shaping San Francisco, for a treasure trove of essays and images relating to San Francisco's history. You can search FoundSF by neighborhood!
- CalisphereFrom the web site: "Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over 925,000 photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more." Use keywords to search for materials, or browse Collections.
- Online Archive of California (OAC)From the web site: "provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses." Search by keyword, or browse Collections.
Take a Tour of Your Neighborhood!
- City of San Francisco Self-Guided ToursTours that you take yourself! Download the app, and then follow the maps and instructions.
Neighborhood News
- San Francisco Chronicle 1865-present
The San Francisco Chronicle provides researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and the world. - San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive
The San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive preserves much of the Bay Area's rich television history on film and broadcast video. As archive videos are remastered, they are made available online for free. - Access World News
Through nearly 7000 news sources, find diverse global, local, regional, and national perspectives on topics related to controversial issues, the environment, health, education, science, the arts, literature, business, economics, criminal justice, and more.
East Bay and Marin County Neighborhoods
City of Alameda Visitors Guide
Visit Berkeley: Includes attractions, and a neighborhood map with information about restaurants, historical sites, and more!
City of Berkeley Self-Guided Tours
Visit Oakland: Information on neighborhoods, events, restaurants, and more!
Oakland Public Library History Room
Oakland Museum of CA: In addition to the exhibits at the museum, you can also view digital photographs from the Oakland Tribune. Search by keyword. You can also search the larger collection of digital photos and documents
Marin County Free Library Digital Collection: View historical photos and documents from the towns and cities of Marin
Citing Your Sources
Whenever you do research, you will need to cite the information sources that you use. Most business scholars use APA style. Here are some tools that can help you with this task:
Gleeson Library's guide to citations: How? Why? When?
- APA 7th Edition Citations for Business SourcesAn excellent guide to using APA 7th edition style for popular business sources. Scroll through the guide to find an example for the business source you are using in your research. Compiled by librarians Naomi Schemm, Marcia Dellenbach, Zachary Grisham, Marianne Hageman, Natalia Tingle, Matt Trowbridge, and Amanda Wheatley
- Citing Business Databases in APA: Michigan State University GuideThis guide was created to help with citing some common business databases
- Citing Business Databases from the University of North Carolina at GreensboroThis guide has some additional business database examples in APA style.
- MLA Business Citations: Youngstown State UniversityScroll down the page to see citations for specific business web sites, reports, and databases cited in MLA style.
- Purdue OWLOur favorite style guide web site is the OWL from Purdue University.
- RefWorks
RefWorks allows users to create personal databases to manage, store, and share the information citations/references. Users can automatically insert references from their database into their papers and generate formatted bibliographies and manuscripts in seconds. See our RefWorks Guide for information about creating accounts, adding references, and using add-ons.
Getting Help!
There are several ways to obtain assistance with your research. Read on!
You have your very own librarian! She is Penny Scott, and you can contact her for help.
Her contact information is: email: plscott@usfca.edu * phone: 415-422-5389
It is best to email ahead, or make an appointment, to make sure she is available! Appointments are available virtually via Zoom, or in person, and are great for groups or individuals. If you don't see a time that works for you, email Penny.
If Penny is not available, or any time you need help, you can always get help, just Ask a Librarian!
You can also take a look at our Research Guides on many topics!