Enhancing Historical Research Skills: A Guide to Effective Search Strategies and Resources

1. HIST 300: Search Strategy Tamara Smith, Reference Librarian Langsdale Library tsmith@ubalt.edu 410-837-5072

2. Plan for Today • Search Strategy • Historical Research • Getting Articles • Activity: Learn a Database • Wrap-up

3. Traditional Search Strategy Research Question: Has integration resulted in a better education for blackchildren?

4. Traditional Search Strategy

5. Search Statement IntegrationANDEducation IntegrationANDEducationANDChild* Desegregation ANDBlack*ANDStudent

6. Boolean Operators • AND: joins concepts/ideas together (both/all) • OR: combines synonyms or related terms (either/any)

7. Combining Keywords • Nesting: combine like terms in parentheses; used to combine synonyms • Truncation (*): special symbol used to represent missing letters; used in place of retyping an entire word

8. Combining Keywords (IntegrationOR Desegregation) AND (EducationORLearn*) AND (Black* ORNegro OR African-American)

9. Historical Research Research Topic: Write a biographical essay about Linda Brown Thompson and her place in American History.

10. Historical Research What we know: • American What we need to know: • Where in America? • Known for what? • When in history?

11. Historical Research Where to start? • Textbook • Encyclopedia • Wikipedia • Search engine • Database

12. Historical Research Linda Brown Thompson • Born 1943 • Grew up in Topeka, Kansas • Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

13. Historical Research Not finding what you want? Get creative! +

14. Historical Research Keywords • Names • Linda Brown Thompson • Oliver Brown (father) • Cheryl Brown Henderson (sister) • Places • Topeka • Kansas • United States

15. Historical Research Keywords • Events • Brown v. Board of Education (1954) • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Topics • Segregation/desegregation • Civil Rights Movement • Jim Crow or “black code” • Racism

16. Finding Journal Articles Subject-Specific Databases: • America: History and Life • Humanities International Complete • JSTOR (full text access for part of the database)

17. Finding Journal Articles General Databases: • Academic Search Premier • Afro-American Historical • Baltimore Sun Historical • Historical Newspapers • Lexis-Nexis Academic

18. Getting to the Full Text Do we own it? • Find It button • Journal Finder If we don’t own it, use ILL

19. Questions?

20. In-Class Exercise: Learning a Database

21. Wrap-Up • If your topic is too broad, add another concept (AND) • If your topic is too narrow, add synonyms and related terms (OR) • When doing historical research, be creative (related people, topics, places, etc.) • Different databases = different results (try more than one)

22. Thank You! Reference Help: Phone: 410-837-4274 E-mail: langref@ubalt.edu IM: ublangsdale HIST 300 Course Page: http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/howto/course_websites/fa09/hist300_nix.htm

23. Photo Credits Young Linda Brown: http://www.policyalmanac.org/culture/archive/7174761-140.jpg (accessed 9/10/08) Cheryl Brown Henderson & Linda Brown Thompson: http://www.canisius.edu/images/userImages/chuckp/Page_5311/browns_300.jpe (accessed 9/10/08)