How to Find Vermont Resources

Researching Vermont issues, locations, and events can be difficult due to the fact that we are a very rural, small state with few research institutions and digitized materials. Many materials about Vermont are housed in archives and the Vermont Historical Society and therefore may not be available to borrow. Here are some ways you can locate Vermont materials:

Books

Try adding Vermont as a keyword when you search for books in the library catalog. Example: farm AND Vermont

You can also use the library catalog's "Multiple Library Search" feature to search through other Vermont library collections. (NOTE: Vermont Archive materials and items from the Vermont Historical Society can not be requested through interlibrary loan).

Newspaper Articles

Most articles about Vermont will be in local or regional newspapers. You can use the library's NewsBank database to search for articles in Vermont newspapers as well as other New England newspapers.

You may also be able to find current news stories posted on newspaper websites, though the full articles are not always freely available. You can find a listing of VT news websites on our Vermont Websites Guide. If you find article citations but cannot view the entire article, you can request a copy of the article using the article request form.

For historical newspaper articles, try the Library of Congress Chronicling America project, which includes full text of several Vermont Newspapers from the 1800's.

Historical Documents

Though many archive materials and documents are available only in print, you can find some resources which have been digitized and are available online. Here are a few repositories for Vermont historical documents:

• Vermont History on the Web
• Vermont Women's History Project
  
• Vermont Heritage Network
  
• UVM Center for Digital Initiatives
  
• Digital Collections at Middlebury College
  
• National Register of Historic Places
  

Websites

Information about Vermont, such as statistics, policies, laws, economic and demographic information, can often be found on state government websites, like Vermont.gov. These are sites that are from .gov or .state.vt.us Internet domains. Use the Recommended Websites for Vermont page to locate even more.

Watch a Video Tutorial About Researching Vermont Issues & Events

It is often difficult to find enough scholarly information on local topics. By slightly broadening the scope of your topic, though, you'll be more likely to find academic sources to develop a "researchable" question. For example, instead of looking for information on drug use in Vermont, perhaps you could broaden your topic to drug use in rural America and use Vermont-specific news articles as case examples.