Comparative Labor History Research Tools & Strategies

Research Process  Developing a topic  Selecting research tools  Creating search strategies  Locating material  Evaluating material

Developing a topic  Is the topic feasible? Is material readily available in the library? Is the material in a language I can read? Is the topic too broad or too narrow? Is there a brief introduction/overview to the topic?

Selecting research tools  What tools to use? Depends on the topic – the discipline Depends on the format of material you want – books, scholarly journal articles, magazine or newspaper articles, dissertations, etc. Depends on the era for which you want material – primary or secondary sources

Searching Databases

What is a database?  A database is a large, organized collection of information. Addresses Recipes Citations to books Photographs Full-text articles  A database can be printed or electronic.

Library Databases  Catalogs – List the holdings of a library or group of libraries. UW Libraries Catalog Summit (Orbis Cascade)  Indexes – List citations to articles published in a set of journals or in a particular discipline. America History & Life EconLit

How are databases organized?  Each item in a database is called a record. In the phone book, a record contains the name of a company, the address and phone number. In a catalog, a record contains the citation to an item (mostly books), subject headings and location. In an article database (index), a record usually contains the citation and an abstract.

How are databases organized?  Online databases are searched by matching search terms to the content of the record.  To increase searching effectiveness, records are organized into fields.

Fields  Keyword – searches multiple fields at one time (title, abstract, subject heading); broadest type of search  Title – searches just the words in the title  Author – searches for authors; usually lastname firstname

Database searching generalities  Literal If you type in a phrase it will search for the phrase  Boolean operators/connectors AND - narrows OR - broadens  Truncation/wildcard Allows you to easily search for variant word endings  * in the UW Libraries Catalog

Boolean: AND child labor AND laws child labor laws

Boolean: OR laws OR legislation laws legislation

Boolean: combining (laws OR legislation) AND child labor laws legislation child labor

Creating Search Statements

Developing a Search Statement TOPIC Key Concepts Synonyms Related terms: People Places Events Dates Organizations

Child labor legislation in the US child labor legislation U.S. children minors work employment united states massachusetts new york National Child Labor Committee, Children’s Bureau, Child Labor Act of 1919, Alan Beveridge, Julia C. Lathrop laws bills regulations

Search statements  Query typed into a database: Keywords/key phrases/key concepts linked by Boolean connectors  child labor AND (law* OR legislation OR regulation*) AND united states  child* AND (work OR employ*) AND history AND united states  child labor AND history AND united states  national child labor committee  lathrop julia OR beveridge alan  child labor act

Locating material  Identify possible material by searching the appropriate search tools Books – go to the library location and call number indicated in the UW Libraries Catalog. Articles – search the UW Libraries Catalog for the title of the journal to see if the UW has a subscription, go to location and call number indicated. If books are not available at the UW – search Summit and request if available If material is not available at the UW nor in Summit – request books/articles through UWorld Express (interlibrary loan)

Evaluating material  Questions to consider Who is the author? What type of publication is it? What biases? What sources are used to support the author’s argument? What is the historical context? How was it received?