The University of Iowa Libraries Graduate History Colloquium

This presentation is available on the Web: http://myweb.uiowa.edu/sostrem/history/016201.html

Introduction

Steve Ostrem Reference Librarian & Library User Ed. Liaison Campus Phone (with voice mail): 335-5521 E-mail: steve-ostrem@uiowa.edu

Stephen Dew (Ph.D. in American History) Distance Education Librarian Campus Phone (with voice mail): 335-5069 E-mail: stephen-dew@uiowa.edu

Ask a Librarian lists your options for help: e-mail, reference consultation, Live Reference.

UI Libraries Home Page: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/

• Note the drop-down menu to Main Library departments, branch libraries
• Help includes a list of library handouts

InfoHawk Library Catalog: http://infohawk.uiowa.edu/, top choice on the Gateway

Basic Search: alphabetical browse search on known authors/titles or LC subject headings

• Library of Congress Subject Headings
• WTI=encyclopedia american history
• Women—United States—History—19th century

What are the limitations of Basic Search?

• restricted to structured (rote order) subject headings
• geography and time period may be too specific
• may retrieve too much stuff

Advanced Search

• AND searches provide specific results, can be restricted to specific collections or formats
• OR searches provide comprehensive results
• they can be used in both Advanced Search and Expert Search

Expert Search

Copy and paste this search string into the Expert Search box:

( WSU= ( women and history and 19th ) AND WSU= ( united states ) AND WSU= ( document? or sources or letters or narratives or correspondence or diaries or manuscripts or archives or interviews ) )

What are the limitations of Advanced Search and Expert Search?

• the vagaries of catalog records, particularly for primary source collections
• no substitute for serendipity: view full records to discover better subject headings.

One last trick: combine searches using your search history in Review/Combine Searches. Search histories persist only in the same browser window.

Journals

• Journals can be identified by searching the full library catalog ("periodicals" appears as a subject word), or from the Journals subset, which has basic search only. Identify electronic journals from the E-journals list. Databases that are InfoLink-enabled will automatically lead to e-journals.

Locating and using library materials

• See the many handouts online or at the Information Desk, particularly for nonprint formats.
• We use Library of Congress Classification. Note that most historical materials are in the C, D, E & F call numbers, but they may be anywhere, depending upon your topic. Not all materials, particularly government publications and microforms, have call numbers.

Selected databases (from the InfoHawk Gateway)

For a more comprehensive list, see the subject entries in the Gateway)

• Academic Search Elite. Multidisciplinary database, both scholarly and popular. Part of EBSCOhost.
• America: History & Life (AHL). Scholarly literature in United States and Canadian history. Can restrict by decade.
• American Periodical Series I (APS). Scanned contents of old magazines, particularly good for women's magazines.
• ArchivesUSA. Useful for locating primary collections.
• Historical Abstracts (HA). Scholarly literature in world history, exclusive of the U.S. and Canada.
• Periodicals Contents Index (PCI). Comprehensive tables of contents of old magazines and journals.
• Historical New York Times. Can limit by year.
• Making of America (MoA). See both the periodicals and monographs collections. Two locations (with different content): U Michigan and Cornell U.
• My Library. A means of searching several databases at once. A work in progress.
• History e-Book Project. Scanned text of monographs (secondary sources) on historical subjects.

Addenda

Useful Web pages for locating historical materials in the Main Library

• Government Publications Department. See the list of Buried Treasure.
• Special Collections Department
• Iowa Women's Archives
• Media Services. See the Index to Microform Collection Guides.
• Library Handouts. See Microform Sets for Historical Research (copies at the Information Desk).

Some Exercises

Using Advanced Search in the library catalog, determine if we have materials about pioneer? women in Iowa in the library collection. Is there a good LC subject heading we could browse (using Basic Search) to find the same items?

Using Advanced Search in the library catalog, determine if we have primary source materials about women suffrage in the United States. Having done that, redo your search to determine how many are in microformat.