· For this part of the assignment, you will need to do a search with the search engines available in Founders library and give an accounting of what you searched, including what subject categories you used to complete the search for your materials. You will list the search engines you have used and give a list of potential books and articles that you found. The idea of this assignment is to accumulate as many potential sources, both secondary and primary, as possible, though you will not be able to consult all of them for this project. However, this will teach you how to do a basic research/source search in history. You need to come up with a very solid bibliography of the secondary literature on the subject, and a list of potential primary materials. You also may need to reassess your topic at this point if you cannot locate primary documents for this research project. However, this search often leads to other potential topics and primary documents, so be sure to note other potential primary source material available at Founders library if this is a potential problem for your topic.
Directions: First, consult with me for any ideas for how to research your subject. I will give you an idea of which of the following are essential to your search, though most of the time the first 5 are essential. In all of the searches below, you should consult a librarian, preferably the social sciences/humanitarian librarian on the 2nd floor of founders. It is wise to search out bibliographies on the subject.
1) Do an initial search in the course materials available, my labor history reading list at www.laborhistorylinks.niu.edu , and Folks list (end of book)
2) Do a search in Founders library catalog (books Founders owns) on the subject of your research, making a list of every Library of Congress subject heading you searched.
3) Navigating subject categories is an essential part of learning to be a good researcher. I will be going over this in class at an early date with a “live” presentation
4) Do a search in World Catalog (WorldCat) search engine for primary and secondary materials. Seek help from a librarian if you are unfamiliar with this search engine. Learn how to narrow the search to relevant materials, from serials, archival and other material that you might be able to access from NIU or from Interlibrary loan. Make a list of the subject headings you searched, and compile a list of the books/sources you located from this search engine.
5) Do a search in JSTOR search engine. This is the search engine for articles in field of history. This is accessible from the Databases list. It is not accessible from the History databases list.
6) Do a search in America: History and Life search engine. At the Founders main site, click on Find Articles at top, then look for History under Humanities column. Click on America: History and Life, and then when the page loads, “click here to access your subscription”. When that page loads, Click America: History and Life again. Enter keywords for your search. See FAQ section for suggestions. Remember to add a checkmark at the left of any relevant title, so that you can print it out at the end of your search.
7) While you are in the Find Articles section, browse through any of the relevant search engines in the History listing of Humanities Database column.
8) Do a Lexus-Nexus search if the subject concerns recent history -- for newspaper-based research, or government records research. Legal cases are also searchable from this database. Again, consult a librarian for assistance.
9) Do a government documents search in the government documents division of Founders if I have indicated that this would be necessary to your paper.
The critical issue in doing thorough searches is to be sure to search in as many broad and narrow categories as possible so that you can retrieve all the scholarly materials and primary documents possible. You should use the Library of Congress subject headings to find more sources within the Founders library and World Catalog search engine
Here is an example. Let’s suppose that you decide to research the role of women in the 1886 struggle for the 8 hour day. You decide, after consulting my Paper topics idea listing, that you are going to search for some 19th century mainstream newspaper, labor papers and the Terence V. Powderly papers for your potential primary documents.. You will have to do a search on the subject of Haymarket as well as searching for books/articles on women in the labor uprisings of the late 19th century. You discuss this with me and I suggest you see my labor history reading list and the list at the end of the chapters of Major Problems and the end of the Folks. When you find a book on Haymarket in founders search engine, you scroll down to see the Library of Congress subject heading. By typing in the keywords “women labor history”, you find books on the subject and by clicking on a number of these you find the formal Library of Congress Heading “Working class women -- United States – History” By clicking on these, you will be taken to other works concerning that subject, and you locate those concerning the 19th century. Now that you have your sedondary literature, you conduct a search on the primary documents. You find the Powderly papers guide and look in its index for materials on Haymarket. You also do a search for Chicago based labor papers at the time, discover that we have only one of these, but that there are a number located at the Newberry library downtown or the Chicago Historical Society. You make a list of these potential primary documents.