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Author
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Comment
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gigi
Unregistered User
(12/4/05 7:50 pm)
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Good research
Hey!
happy holidays!
I was wondering besides googling an item you wish to research what tried and true methods do you have?
Winkipedia has helped a lot. Someone was an avid fan of the website and it has helped greatly in random researches I have had to do....
Any suggestions strategies and support you can give to me are wonderful.
gigi
PS no specific purpose except I might as well gather info. when I am not swamped with work
gigi
:D
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered
User
(12/4/05 8:03 pm)
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research
Well, call me an old-fashioned woman, but I always prefer solid, three-dimensional research. I always start at the library. I'd go to a good research library and run some keyword search through their catalogs. Depending on your field, there might be some databases of help. As my field is lit-crit, I rely on the MLA database, which catalogs every publication in the field, books as well as journal articles.
Have fun!
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princessterribel
Registered
User
(12/5/05 2:49 am)
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Re: research
oooh, Wikipedia is great, but beware. The articles can be altered by anyone without having to go through a moderator first. I was reading an article on there and found some information that was completely incorrect, so I was able to alter the paragraph just like that! Bear it in mind for research, you may be reading information that is not strictly 'correct'.
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aka Greensleeves
Registered
User
(12/5/05 12:15 pm)
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Re: research
I've been able to find a lot of books through searches on Amazon and Amazon.co.uk. I don't just stop at the first tier, though--I read the "this book cites the following titles," and "people who bought this book also bought" sections. And by clicking the little boxes at the bottom of any book's page ("find similar books by subject"), you can tighten your search and get more salient results (for non-fiction; the fiction results are hit-or-miss).
Since often the most useful books aren't the most commercial ones (read: out of print/not avail. on Amazon), I then turn to interlibrary loan, used booksellers (Abebooks is reliable and consistent) or ebay. I think I picked up my entire Christina Hole library through Abe and ebay.
When the books come, I scour their bibliographies. I added some wonderful texts to my library thanks to the bibliographies in Karen Cushman's books.
Lastly, just about every subject/interest you can think of (from historical costuming to mountain hiking to suicide) has a discussion group just like this one. They can be great resources for the information you just can't ever seem to track down in books.
When I was looking for data on the price of gold thread in the 18th Century, I found a book through the Victoria and Albert Museum, who pointed me toward the Royal School of Needlework, who recommended me to their goldwork teacher, who gave me the title of a book published as a history of a London Livery Company (which I then got through ILL). The person who told me to check the V&A was on a message board for historical needlework.
Edited by: aka Greensleeves at: 12/5/05 12:15 pm
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Mirjana1
Registered
User
(12/5/05 2:03 pm)
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Re: research
As for the library research: for as long as you have a library card, you can actually log into their database from home and search for books.
I also agree with Amazin searches- it is an awsome tool, to source out books on the topic.
Web sites like this, of course, are invaluable.
There are some community web sites, free for all to log in and post ad of any sort - for example greg's list - where you can find so many people interested in the same thing.
Once I also got into the local University
library on line and found a book that was not available anywhere
else.
I guess we all don't want to have to leave our desks to do research, but small second hand shops have selections that may bring some surpirses.
Census data is available, and for some stuff you have to pay.
I am also interested to hear what others have as sources. So far this web site opened a world of possibilities for me.
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