1. WISER: History Finding journal articles Isabel D. Holowaty, History Librarian

2. Aims Why not use OLIS? Sources of information What is a bibliographical database? Selecting the most relevant source Basic information searching skills Demonstrations Questions Hands-on Finding help

3. Why can’t I use OLIS to find journal articles? Librarians catalogue journal titles - but not individual journal articles.

4. Why not use OLIS??? Search in OLIS under journal title not article author/title.

5. Sources of information TDNet Bibliographical databases Bibliographical reference works

6. What is a bibliographical database? Database holding bibliographical data Index publications on a particular topic e.g. Historical Abstracts e.g. Philosopher’s Index e.g. British Humanities Index Often referred to as A & I databases (Abstracting & Indexing databases)

7. What is a bibliographical database? Tell you what was published, not what is in Oxford! 1. Use Tour button to locate eFull-text. 2. Search OLIS to locate printed Full-text.

8. Selecting the best resource  OxLIP Subject guide  History  Bibliographic databases  General  By topic  By area

9. Information searching skills A few principles The success of a search largely depends on the choice of the database. The larger the database, the greater the chances of getting irrelevant information. We want to find everything that is relevant. There is usually more than one way to get results, but some are better than others.

10. Information searching skills A few tools Boolean operators Indexes Limits Sorting

11. Boolean operators AND+ narrow search e.g. apple and crumble apple + crumble

12. Boolean operators OR broaden search e.g. apple or crumble

13. Boolean operators NOT refine search e.g. apple not pie

14. Demonstrations Historical Abstracts / America: History & Life Royal Historical Society Bibliography International Medieval Bibliography

15. Historical Abstracts Global coverage, excl. US & Canada 1450- present Journal articles, books, dissertations, essay collections, some book reviews Publications from 1955- Update monthly Limit by historical period Foreign language titles are translated into English and are searchable CLIO Alerts Off-campus: Athens & VPN

16. America: History & Life US & Canada Prehistory- present Journal articles, books, dissertations, essay collections, some book reviews Publications from 1964- Updated monthly Limit by historical period Foreign language titles are translated into English and are searchable CLIO Alerts Off-campus: Athens & VPN

17. Royal Historical Society Bibliography British Isles, British Empire & Commonwealth, special focus also on London and Ireland 55BC – present Journal articles, books, book articles, some collections of essays, some book reviews, dissertations only for London history, excl. more primary sources Publications from 1901- Updated 3 times a year Limit by historical period & place Off-campus: free on web

18. International Medieval Bibliography Euro-focus, but also covers Africa, Middle East etc. 1 st cent. – early modern period Journals articles, articles from conference proceedings, Festschriften, exhibition catalogues, etc. Publications from 1967- Updated quarterly Limit by historical period & place Off-campus: VPN

19. Questions & hands-on

20. Finding help Library staff in HFL, Upper Camera and Upper Reading Room HFL, library@history.ox.ac.uk, 2-77262library@history.ox.ac.uk Ask a Librarian http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/readerserv/ask/ History Librarian, isabel.holowaty@ouls.ox.ac.ukisabel.holowaty@ouls.ox.ac.uk, 2-77263