Got to H-Latam, an international forum for the scholarly discussion of Latin American History. It is a member of the H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online initiative and affiliated with the Conference On Latin American History (CLAH). It has links to research sites, search engines, job bureaus, and much more.

Another major Latin American center is Tulane University's Latin American Library Center site. It contains nine major sections including reference services and resources, a Latin American data base, an archive of electronic periodicals, a photographic archive, and a section on using the Web as an instructional resource.

In the category of general history aids, see the truly excellent Internet History Sourcebooks Project which are collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use.

Some of the most useful helpers, or "finding aids" as they used to be called before the "Information Age Revolution," are "search engines." These search engines are sites on the World Wide Web especially geared to help you search the Web. The most helpful one is Google, created by software engineers who like silly names. Be sure to return to this page. Try Google Scholar, an innovation to facilitate scholarly research.

One of the richest sources of information is the Handbook of Latin American Studies located in the Library of Congress, Washington. The Handbook is the most complete tool for searching the rich variety of scholarly publications in all fields of Latin American Studies, including, of course history. It is totally online. Once there, you can link to other Library of Congress sites. Try it.

One of the best sites, created and maintained by Prof. Richard Slatta, History Department, N. C. State, is his  History Bookmarks for Students . It contains dozens of excellent links to history sites related to Latin American History.

Another excellent site, maintained by Steven Volk of Oberlin College, is entitled Sources and General Resources on Latin America.

A truly exception, prize-winning page on Christopher Columbus, entitled the  Columbus Navigation Homepage contains copies of original documents (Columbus's first letter, the log of first voyage, etc.), detailed information on sailing and navigation in the age of exploration, records of all Columbus's voyages, and dozens of links to other very useful sites. It is more than introduction to Columbus; it is a pathway to the age of exploration as it dawned with respect to Europe and the Americas.
 
An excellent, if somewhat eclectic, source of information is Andre Engels  Discoverers Web page. It contains hundreds of items and web links related to the subject of discovery and exploration from ancient times to the contemporary period. VERY useful. Engels lives in the Netherlands.
 
An excellent site, especially for historians and students of Latin American history, is the UNCC Latin American Web Page maintained by Profs. Lyman Johnson and Jurgen Buchenau at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Just recently (August 2008), librarian and historian Brett Spencer of the University of Alabama Libraries put together a quick start guide to library resources for students doing research papers in history classes. While this is not a comprehensive (nothing ever is) guide, it is a good start for history resources, especially online, in the University of Alabama Libraries.