1 History postgraduate resources Richard Pears & Laura Jeffrey

2 Aims of this session Highlight importance of search strategies Increase awareness of the History resources at Durham and elsewhere Discuss your research

3 What are you looking for? Planning is the key: look carefully at your topic break it down into concepts or themes e.g. “The role of propaganda in forging the Nazi state”? propagandaNazi Germanyrole

4 Boolean operators AND –both words must be present in the record for it to be retrieved OR –either word or both must be present in the record for it to be retrieved NOT –the first word must be present, but not if the second is, for it to be retrieved. U se with care!

5 Boolean operators AND propaganda AND Nazi OR role OR impact NOT Germany NOT France

6 Boolean operators use the Boolean operators to help you express your search logically e.g. propagandaNazistate AND

7 Synonyms and spellings think about other terms which mean the same i.e. synonyms, or related terms remember alternative spellings e.g. US vs British PropagandaNaziRole GoebbelsGermanyimpact AND OR AND

8 Other options with keyword searching use truncation to pick up plurals or other word endings –e.g. Brit* = British, Britain, Briton use wildcards to pick up spelling variants – e.g. behavio?r = behavior, behaviour use adjacency for words appearing in the same sentence –e.g. Goebbels WITHIN 5 propaganda

9 Truncation Put the truncation symbol at the end of a shared word stem to pick up a range of word endings Brit*poli*econom* UKstrateg*commerc* AND OR AND

10 Limiting a search Can you make your search more specific? For example: –English language –Date of publication (last 5 years?) –Type of publication (review articles, primary sources, media?)

11 Selecting your resources what kind of information do you want? how much information do you want? which “finding aids” cover this type of information? e.g.  Library Catalogues for books  databases such as Historical Abstracts / JSTOR for journal articles  LexisNexis Executive / Times Digital Archive for newspaper articles

12 The Library Web page for History

13 Resources Books & e-books Directories Journals & e-journals E-prints Conference proceedings Theses Internet pages Statistics Official publications Specialist reports Primary material, including archives Discussion groups Academics & librarians

14 Library catalogue Search for books Search for journals by TITLE Connect to e-journals bibliographic references Renew loans 24/7/365

15 COPAC -

16 E-books Early English Books Online (EEBO) Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Patrologia Latina Internet, e.g. Google Books -

17 Primary sources Archives session 16 October Palace Green Library Durham University Archives & Special Collections Access to Archives

18 New research Theses Alerting services E-prints Document delivery service

19 References and Bibliographies ALWAYS keep a full and accurate record of your information sources Use the Library Catalogue to references for saving Make sure you refer correctly to other authors within your work

20 Practical Connect to the internet Open the page Identify resources for your research Ask for assistance if required

21 Don’t forget… Archives session 16 October Palace Green Library PGRs: Library / IT training Monday 22 October pm – Finding and managing information for your PhD