The City as American History, Hist 2660/GSWS 2662/URBS 2660

Use reference materials to gain an understanding of your topic and discover key people, events, and terms that you can use to search for secondary and then primary sources.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History (online, 2012)

Encyclopedia of the City (online, 2005)

In H-L Reference Collection

Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century
Main Ref E169.1 .E626 2001 (print)

The Reader's Companion to American History
Main Ref E174 .R43 1991 (print)

Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration
Main Ref E185.6 .E54 2006

Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century
Main Ref E740.7 .E53 1996

Poverty and the Government in America
Main Ref HC110.P6 P595 2009 (print)

Encyclopedia of American Social History
Main Ref HN57 .E58 1993

Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies
Main Ref HQ75.15 .R43 2000

World Encyclopedia of Cities, Vol 1 and 2, North America
Main Ref HT108.5 .K87 1994

Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and the Suburbs
Main Ref HT123 .E5 1998 (print)

Encyclopedia of American Urban History
Main Ref HT123 .E49 2007

On H-L Second Floor

Encyclopedia of Homelessness
HV4493 .E53 2004

Catalogs of libraries with extensive urban collections:
Boston Public Library
Columbia
Harvard
Library of Congress
New York Public Library
University of Chicago
Yale

Selected search strategies for use in library catalogs and databases.

1. Keyword Searching. Conduct a keyword search in a database using either heuristically developed search terms or a list of carefully developed search terms, depending on the database and your needs. If permitted in the database, you may want to combine terms using Boolean AND, OR, or NOT. Find materials of interest and note the relevant subject headings, descriptors, topics, etc. for further use in Keyword Searching or in Subject Searching.
2. Subject Searching. Subject search in a database. A good way to develop a list of terms to be used in Subject Searching is by Keyword Searching. If permitted in the database, you may want to combine terms using Boolean AND, OR, or NOT.
3. Author Searching. Identify an author who has published in the area of interest. Conduct an author search to find other materials by that author. Use Google or search at the author's home institution to find the author's CV, which might contain other materials or materials not yet published.
4. Footnote Chasing (a.k.a. Backward Citation Searching). Find a key book, article, dissertation, or other item of interest, then follow the notes and/or bibliographic entries. In so doing, one follows the research network backward in time. This can be done based on a print or on a full-text electronic version of the item. Some of the databases in the box "Citation Searching in Subscription Databases" below provide bibliographies that one can use to footnote chase.
5. Citation Searching (a.k.a. Forward Citation Searching). Find a key book, article, dissertation, or other item of interest, then find articles or books that cite it. This enables one to follow the research network forward in time. To be an effective search technique, the key source should have been published long enough ago that it has had time to be cited. See boxes below.
6. Browsing. Find a book of interest that is shelved using the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) scheme. Go to the shelf where the book is located (or would be, were it on the shelf). Browse other materials near the book of interest. Compass can also be browsed: find a book of interest in Compass; use "Virtual Browse" OR "Browse CBBcat Shelf". This strategy allows for serendipitous finds.
7. Journal Run. Identify an important journal in the area of interest. Then search or browse through all volumes in the relevant years. As Bates notes, "this approach exploits Bradford's Law: the core journals in a subject area are going to have very high rates of relevant materials in that area".

* From a given article, click "Times Cited in this Database" to view citing articles. Citation searching is available through "Cited References" (blue bar at the top). See Cited References, EBSCO.

Author Searching, Browsing (what she calls "Area Scanning"), Citation Searching, Footnote chasing, Journal Run, and Subject Searching are from Marcia J. Bates' classic article, "The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface." Online Review 13 (October 1989): 407-424.