1.1 Researching biography: who is douglas sladen?  (Page 5/8)

By searching the remaining two subject categories we have chosen, World History and Middle Eastern Studies we find some additional databases to add toour list, including JSTOR (the Scholarly Journal Archive) , Academic Universe and Contemporary Authors . We will explore a few of these databases as an introduction to how they work and what theycan yield. (Note that in order to access these resources your institution must subscribe to the database and you must be logged into its network.)

How to search the online databases for articles in journals or newspapers

In this section we will be searching Historical Abstracts, JSTOR and The Times of London as an introduction to this kind of online resource. In thissection we will only be collecting information (applications of that information will be explored in the section following this one).

Historical abstracts

First, let's take a look at the way the article is listed. Type, Author and Title are clear enough headings; just remember that we are looking at anarticle in a periodical and not a book. This title would probably not show up in a title search on an online catalog. Citation, however, offers us a title that will;that of the periodical in which the article was published. "Publishing History" is that title; the brackets around Great Britain indicate where it was published. Wehave the date of this particular edition (1988), its volume number in parentheses and even the page numbers of the article following the colon (95-100). Locating acopy of this article will require all of this information, so let's make note of it now in the research diary--or print, or save a copy of this entry in a folder onyour computer.

Secondly, beside the heading Documentation we find that an archive of Douglas Sladen's personal papers exists in the Richmond Public Library. There isalways the possibility that they have been digitized. Even if we have difficulty finding them online, the library can always be contacted and thecopies of papers possibly obtained. You should always make note of such a cache ofarchival information on your subject. You never know, you may wind up turning this project into a doctoral thesis one day.