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SHORTCUT 15. Head for the Right Library
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
SHORTCUT 15 Head for the Right Library The first place to head with your list of research questions is to the right data collector. Most data collections are in libraries. You've probably visited the local public library, your grade school library, and your undergraduate library at college. For most research projects, your college or university library is the place to start. As a rule, the larger your academic institution, the larger its collection. Many colleges have more than one library, a fact too many students overlook. For example, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, there are twenty major libraries including an art library, an agriculture library, a pharmacy library, and an astronomy library, as well as a number of smaller, individual departmental libraries such as geology and AfroAmerican studies. If your general topic is geology, you'll probably get the best results in the least time if your campus has a geology department library. The information there will be more upto -date, and it'll be faster to retrieve because it's concentrated in a smaller area than in the vast general campus library that most students head for. In addition to the public library and your various academic libraries, there are probably lots of other valuable libraries in your town or nearby. One of them may be much better for your particular needs. We'll just touch on a few typical specialized libraries here. Every newspaper keeps a morgue, a library of its past issues clipped and filed on a topic-by-topic, name-by-name 44 Copyrighted Material Head for the Right Library 45 basis. Some morgues clip related material from other newspapers and periodicals as well. Most permit researchers to use their files. Many keep their back files online along with a search engine that is fast and easy to use. Some also answer short questions by phone, and respond to mailed requests by photocopying shorter files, usually for a modest fee. Associations and foundations have libraries too. Large businesses often keep libraries for their researchers and decision-makers. Historical societies and museums stock libraries with valuable collections of specialized materials. The local bar association, the county medical association, the state cancer society, and similar groups all keep libraries of information for their members. Most of these private libraries welcome students. Many keep their back files online for researchers. You can easily find the location of practically every important library in the country. There are indexes that list most of them. One is the American Library Directory, another the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers. Ask the reference librarian at your school library to help you use one of them. Once you've located the best library (or libraries) for your purpose, it pays to spend a few minutes learning how it's organized. Copyrighted Material ...