"How Does "Oriental Cairo" Compare With Similar Works?" examines how to view a work in relation to similar works from other regions or periods, using an example "Oriental Cairo," which is included in the online Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). This module is designed to guide you through the process of collecting a list of works dealing with the city of Cairo. We arrange the works regionally and chronologically to demonstrate how they can be used comparatively in a research project. This is part four of a nine-part course that uses Sladen's work for a case study on performing historical research.
Introduction
How can we understand a work and an author from another historical period? In previous
modules that are part of the course on Douglas Sladen and
Oriental Cairo: City of the Arabian
Nights , we have constructed a
biography of Sladen and
a
bibliography of his works.
Now we will investigate how to view
Oriental Cairo: City of the Arabian
Nights , an early twentieth-century travel book included in the
Travelers in the Middle East
Archive (TIMEA) , in the context of other works.
We may assume that Douglas Sladen is not the first or lastperson to write about the city of Cairo. One way of assessing a work of literature is to
compare it with similar works. In this way we can see the differences between two workswritten around the same time, published in the same region about the same subject. We can also
track trends in writing about a subject over time by comparing consecutive works written aboutthe same subject. Also, we might notice some differences between works published in different
regions that reflect different regional perspectives. In this module wewill build a list of works to which we can compare
Oriental Cairo by using Library of Congress Subject Headings and WorldCat.
Collecting a bibliography
As we accumulate our list of books, you should make notes
with at least the minimum amount of information required to locate a copy of each work.However, you may also wish to include as much descriptive information as possible about each
work we find, producing a browsable list of abstracted topics as well as titles for futurereference.
The following example, drawn from the catalog record for
Oriental
Cairo , should clarify what we mean:
Research record for
Oriental
Cairo The most practical resource for this practice will be explored in the section below
on The Library of Congress.
The library of congress
The Library of Congress is the source of the system of categorization used by
most of the libraries in the United States. We will be using their online catalog tolay out the parameters of our genre and to collect information on the works contained within
it.
Accessing the catalog of the library of congress
Visit
(External Link) to access the Library of
Congress catalog. From this page we can begin to assemble our bibliography.
Collecting entries from the database at the library of congress
Let's take a look
at the types of information provided by the Library of Congress about their works, beginningwith Oriental Cairo. Select the Basic Search option to the left of the screen. Enter
"Oriental Cairo" into the text box provided and select begin search.
Basic Title Search We receive a brief record at this point. Just to make sure we have all of the
information we need, select the Full Record option among the tabs above the entry.
Full Record Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will notice a Print or Save option.
By selecting the Print or Save option you will be provided with a text only version
of the information on "Oriental Cairo." You can now copy and paste this information into adocument or download the web page for future use. Alternatively, you can email the search
results to yourself. You should organize the information in a way that serves your researchinterests best, but take care not to eliminate any valuable information.
As you add to your bibliography, do so alphabetically by authorto save time in searching the lists later.
Receive real-time job alerts and never miss the right job again
Source:
OpenStax, Conducting historical research: the case of "oriental cairo". OpenStax CNX. Oct 23, 2006 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10291/1.4
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