Bibliographical databases for historians

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Bibliographical databases for historians

• Isabel D. Holowaty
• History Librarian
• isabel.holowaty_at_ouls.ox.ac.uk

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Aims

• Why not use OLIS to find journal articles?
• Sources of information
• What is a bibliographical database?
• Selecting the most relevant source
• Basic information searching skills
• Demonstrations
• Finding help
• Questions

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Why not use OLIS to find journal articles???

• Librarians catalogue journal titles
• but not individual journal articles

Search in OLIS under journal title
not article author/title
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Sources of information

• TDNet
• Bibliographical databases
• Bibliographical (printed) reference
• works

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What is a bibliographical database?

• Database holding bibliographical data
• Index publications on a particular topic/format
• e.g. Historical Abstracts
• e.g. Philosophers Index
• e.g. Index to Theses
• Often referred to as A I databases
• (Abstracting Indexing databases)

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What is a bibliographical database?

• Tell you what was published, not what is in
  Oxford!
• 1. Use button to locate eFull-text.
• 2. Search OLIS to locate printed Full-text.

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Selecting the best resource

• OxLIP Subject guide
• History
• Bibliographic databases
• General
• By topic
• By area

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Information searching skillsA few tools

• Boolean operators
• Indexes
• Limits
• Sorting

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Boolean operators

• AND narrow search
• e.g. apple and crumble
• apple crumble

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Boolean operators

• OR broaden search
• e.g. apple or crumble

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Boolean operators

• NOT refine search
• e.g. apple not pie

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Demonstrations

• Historical Abstracts
• Royal Historical Society Bibliography
• International Medieval Bibliography
• Arts Humanities Citation Index

Any others?
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Historical Abstracts

• Global coverage
• 1450 - present
• Journal articles, books, dissertations, essay
  collections,
• some book reviews
• Publications from 1955-
• 667,000 records
• Update monthly
• Limit by historical period
• Foreign language titles are also translated into
  English and
• are searchable
• CLIO Alerts
• Off-campus Athens VPN

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Royal Historical Society Bibliography

• British Isles, British Empire Commonwealth,
  special focus
• also on London and Ireland
• 55BC present
• Books, journal articles, book articles, some
  collections of
• essays, some book reviews, dissertations only
  for London
• history, excl. primary sources
• Publications from 1901-
• 390,000 records
• Updated 3 times a year
• Limit by historical period place
• Off-campus free on web

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International Medieval Bibliography

• Euro-focus, but also covers Africa, Middle East
  etc.
• 300 - 1500
• Journals articles, articles from conference
  proceedings, Festschriften, exhibition
  catalogues, etc.
• Publications from 1967-
• 330,000 records
• Updated quarterly
• Limit by historical period place
• Off-campus VPN

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Arts Humanities Citation Index

• Global coverage for humanities
• All periods
• Journal articles, book reviews, editorials,
  meeting abstracts, etc.
• Publications from 1975-
• 2.5million records
• Updated weekly
• Citation searching (who has cited whom)
• Cant limit by period
• Foreign language titles are translated into
  English (beware!)
• Off-campus Athens VPN

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Finding help

• Library staff in HFL, UCam URR
• HFL
• library_at_history.ox.ac.uk, 2-77262
• Ask a Librarian
• http//www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/readerserv/ask/
  
• History Librarian
• isabel.holowaty_at_ouls.ox.ac.uk, 2-77263/294

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Questions