Current mood:	excited
Entry tags:	boolean commands, gutting a book, lcsh, web site evaluation

Researching Resources for the Voice of the Revolution
As promised, here is a more thorough list of resources for listeners of Indie Press Revolution's "Voice of the Revolution" podcast.  In the interview, we discussed using Library of Congress subject headings in library searches, as well as Boolean logic strategies and the technique called "gutting a book."  Here's more information...

For a more thorough discussion of searching in online library catalogs and databases, visit the blog for my project with Sean Sakamoto, finding_antioch.

Library of Congress Authorities

http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First

This is the web site for the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Name Authority Files (LCNAF).  These are the controlled vocabularies that get used to describe bibliographic records in library databases.  If you use these, make sure that in the Search Type box that you have the proper type selected.  Subjects will show you subject words – you’ll want those that turn up in a search that are marked with a red button that says, “Authorized Heading.”  

If the word you’re using isn’t in there as an authorized heading, keep trying with a variety of synonyms.  Remember, LoC started with the library of Thomas Jefferson, so there is some pretty idiosyncratic terminology in there.  For instance, “cooking” is under “cookery.”

Here’s a good primer from Western Washington University’s libraries on using controlled vocabularies in searches.

http://www.library.wwu.edu/ref/howtoguides/usingcontrolledvocabulary.html

Any books that you already find useful on a particular subject may have the LoC subject information listed toward the bottom of the page with copyright information.  You can use those already listed subjects to look for other, similar books at your local library.  Be sure to check the subjects of books that come up in your search for additional, useful terms.

Gutting a Book

Here’s a primer on how to gut a book by Dr. Naomi Standen of  the Newcastle University School of Historical Studies.

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/naomi.standen/impchina/guttingabook.htm

As I said, I’m a very slow reader – one of those people who “hears” the words in her head as if someone is speaking to her – and gutting a book is difficult from a retention standpoint for me.  I love to get caught in the evidence and the meandering logic of an academic argument.  But for those with little time, it’s a great way to get the knowledge quickly from a source.

Boolean Searches

The University of Maryland Libraries provides an excellent explanation of complex Boolean logic strings here:

http://www.lib.umd.edu/guides/boolean.html

To be able to apply these properly in specific search engines, use this search engines features chart from Search Engine Showdown:

http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not recommend to you this excellent check list for evaluating the reliability of information on web sites.  It comes to us from the fine minds at the University of California, Berkeley Libraries:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

finding_antioch