ENGL 881: RESEARCH METHODS “LIBRARY” RESEARCH IN SECONDARY & PRIMARY SOURCES May 2012 Holly Hendrigan, Liaison Librarian

Workshop objectives Understand where to find and how to search:  Secondary Sources  MLA  Historical Abstracts  Shakespearean Criticism  Primary Sources:  Early English Books Online

Research guide for this class

Secondary sources  Library Search/Fast Search  MLA Bibliography  Historical Abstracts  Shakespearean Criticism

Library Search/Fast Search  Search boxes on Library’s home page  Integrated Library catalogue and ~65% of our full-text e- journals  Don’t overlook books!  Fast Search: it’s fast, but it’s not smart

Search example  Library search: shakespeare cultural materialist  Article: Short Shrift: Religion and Materialist Criticism  Book: Materialist Shakespeare : a history / edited by Ivo Kamps.  IN at Bennett Library: Request item  Check out subject headings: Literature and society -- England -- History -- 16th century.

Fast way to find known items  Search:  Writing criticism jonathan culler  “A Note on the Current State of Humanities Scholarship”

Practice on Library Search

MLA International Bibliography  Comprehensive  Excellent indexing  Warning: “International” means that much content is non-English “Comprehensive” means that many articles and dissertations will require an Interlibrary Loan. Start early!

Search example  Shakespeare and historicism: 112 results  Article “More Than History Can Pattern': Shakespeare and Historicism”: Where can I get this?  Book chapter “Teaching Shakespeare and the Uses of Historical Formalism”  “Shakespeare's Gifts: Self-Fashioning, Authorising, Stephen Greenblatt” SFU does not own: need to ILL

Cool stuff in MLA (and other EBSCO DBs)  Advanced search  Folders  Citation tools  Switch to other databases

Shortcut to Historical Abstracts

 Some overlap with MLA, but it indexes primarily history journals  Eg search Shakespeare and historicist  14 results. #6: “The new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt: On poetics of culture and the interpretation of....”  In journal History & Theory: Not indexed in MLA.

Practice time!

Shakespearean Criticism  A series in the Gale Literary and Critical DatabasesGale Literary and Critical Databases  Takes a “wider lens” approach (more overviews)  Can be a real time-saver on a literature review for early and seminal critical works  Warning: need to go elsewhere for contemporary criticism

Primary Sources

 A primary source is a document or other sort of evidence written or created during the time under study, or by one of the persons or organizations directly involved in the event.  Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event. DiariesSpeechesLetters MinutesAutobiographiesOfficial records PoetryDramaNovels MusicArtEtc...

Digital Archives  Pre-Internet times: research libraries held collections of primary sources on microfilm  Today, libraries purchase digital collections

EEBO: Early English Books Online  Microfilming of British Library historical collections began in 1931  Not quite complete, but getting closer  Two routes into EEBO:  1. Library Search. All books are in the catalogue  2. Through the library databases page (later)

Searching for known items Library Search: Look up document Drunkard’s Character written by Richard Younge in 1638

Detective work in primary sources

WARNING:  Some of these repositories have THOUSANDS of full-text documents  These repositories lack the “relevance” algorithm  Use the “Advanced Search” features to increase your success rate  Use subject headings whenever possible

EEBO EEBO Subject keyword feature  Eg: “Tavern” as keyword: 5964 hits in 2622 records  “Taverns (Inns) – England” as subject keyword: 36 hits in 35 records

EEBO Practice time

Fascinated by primary sources?  Check out our Primary Sources guidePrimary Sources  Some of the more popular sources listed on the ENGL 881 guide

Questions? Help is available!!!  Holly Hendrigan, MATE liaison librarian   Thanks for your time!