Conducting library research is not like searching the web; it is more complex and takes more time.
Start with one (or two) broad keywords. If your results don't seem relevant, use broader keywords (or broader keywords).
Once you get some relevant results, pick the most promising items and access them. Look through them to see if they contain information that you can use. Things to look at include: abstracts (of articles), tables of contents (at the front of books), and indexes (at the back of books).
Don't expect to find the perfect article or book that gives you all the information that you're looking for. Your job is to collect pieces of information from various sources and put them together into a coherent whole.
If you have any questions, please contact me This link opens in a new window. 😃
In order to search the library catalog and most library databases, you'll need to use keywords. It's helpful to make a list of keywords before you start searching. The first place to look for keywords is in the assignment itself. By reading the assignment closely, I identified the following keywords: slavery, race, 1820-1860. Searching for specific dates is usually not very helpful, so I wanted to find out the significance of the forty years from 1820 to 1860.
One of the places that I looked was the Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window database. On the home page, there is a link named Era. Clicking on the link reveals a dropdown menu, which lists relevant historical eras. The years 1801-1860 are labeled "The Antebellum Era and Slave Economy". To find out more about the Antebellum Era, I consulted the U.S. History This link opens in a new window database by Gale. I searched for the word antebellum and found two very helpful topic guides, which confirmed that the years 1820-1860 fall during what is often referred to as the Antebellum Era. (source This link opens in a new window) So, I added this to my list of keywords. I also added a few related terms: Antebellum, Antebellum South, Antebellum North.
The assignment also lists four topics, from which you'll choose one: economics, culture, politics, and gender ideology. Each one of these can be used as a keyword. So, I ended up with two sets of keywords:
slavery, race, Antebellum Era, Antebellum, Antebellum South, Antebellum North
economics, culture, politics, gender ideology
I conducted several searches of the library catalog and library databases using some of the keywords on my lists. I found that the best keyword to start with is: antebellum. This is a broad keyword that yields many results. Be prepared to review many results. The title of each result will usually tell you whether the item is worth investigating further.
The library catalog and most databases provide the following helpful filters to narrow down your search results:
Full text: Apply this filter to remove all search results that do not include the full text of the article. Note: if you find an article that doesn't include the full text, contact me This link opens in a new window and I will try to get the full text.
Publication date: A good date range to start with is the last five years.
Source type: Articles from newspapers and magazines are good places to start because they help you get a sense of your topic. They are written by journalists for the general public, so they tend to be written at a basic or intermediate level. Once you're more familiar with your topic, and have narrowed it down, you can search for articles from academic journals. These are written by experts (usually academics) for other experts, so they tend to be written at an advanced level. They're usually about a very narrow topic, such as a new research study (in the sciences) or a new interpretation of a literary work (in the humanities).
The library catalog and most databases provide the following helpful tools:
Citation: This tool provides the citation for the selected item. The citation is usually given in several formats, including MLA and APA.
Email: In the library catalog, this tool lets you email the selected record of an item to yourself. In databases, this tool lets you email the selected article to yourself. Most databases give you the option to include the citation of the article, in the style that you select, in the same email.
Permalink: When you're using library databases, the URLs that appear in your browser’s address field are temporary and expire once you leave the database. This means that if you copy and paste the URL somewhere, then click on it later, it will not take you back to the page in the database that you were on. It will just give you an error message. If you want to save the URL of a page in a library database, use the permalink tool. This generates a URL that is permanent, so it will take you back to the page in the database that you were on.
If you’re off campus, you’ll be prompted to sign-in before you can access electronic resources from the library catalog and in the databases. Use your MyNOVA username and password.