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Research Guide for Asian American Studies 485/English 485:
Chutney and Eggrolls: South/Asian American Formations

	Information Literacy Research Strategy CU Library Gateway Finding Background Resources Finding Books Finding Articles Internet Resources Evaluating Sources Citing Sources Research and Reference Help
Image from The India Abroad Center for Political Awareness web site.

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Information Literacy

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Information Literacy...enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning. An information literate individual is able to:

• Determine the extent of information needed
• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally

  (From the Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.)

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Research Strategy

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Research strategy: a tutorial - an online, hypertext guide that serves as an outline for conducting library research.

1. Choosing and developing your topic
2. Finding background information
3. Finding books
   • CU Library Catalog
   • Library catalogs worldwide
4. Finding periodical articles (magazine, newspaper, and journal articles)
5. Using the WWW to find Internet resources
   • CU Library web pages
   • Internet search engines
6. Evaluating the sources that you find
7. Citing your sources

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Cornell University Library Gateway

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The Cornell University Library Gateway is the Cornell University Library's homepage on the World Wide Web. The Gateway lists information about the CU Library and provides access to library resources and services.

e-Reference Collection contains titles, descriptive information, and links to over 2000 networked electronic resources, including periodical indexes, numeric and spatial data files, catalogs, audio-visual materials, and full text reference sources. There are two main ways to search for resources in your areas of interest: searching and browsing.

CU Library Web Sites connects to all of the Library's web pages.

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Finding Background Resources

Reference Books, e-Reference Collection

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• Cayton, Marx Kupiec, ed. Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 vols. New York: Scribner's, 1992.

  Uris Library Reference HN57 .E56 1992; also Olin Library Reference
  

  Also available online as part of the History Resource Center: U.S.

  This 3-volume encyclopedia uses the scholarship of historians, sociologists, geographers and anthropologists to present various aspects of American social history, including periods of social change, patterns of everyday life, family history and science, medicine and technology.

• Gall, Susan and Irene Natiridad, eds. Reference Library of Asian America. 3 vols. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.

  Uris Library Reference E184.06 R32 1995

  A detailed look inside the Asian American community: The umbrella term "Asian American" covers over twenty individual and unique nationality and ethnic groups which are described in the first 15 chapters. Later chapters deal with major issues, such as civil rights and education, which have affected all of these groups (Preface).

• Gall, Susan B., ed. Statistical Record of Asian Americans. Detroit: Gale, 1993.

  Olin Library Reference E184 .O6 S73x 1993; also Kroch Asia Library Reference, Mann Library Reference

  A compilation of statistical data on the Asian and Pacific Islander population in the United States and Canada. It includes comparative data with other ethnic groups. Statistics are provided on history, demographics, the family, education, health and health care, and social and economic conditions. Chapters on domestic life, religion and attitudes/opinions are also included.

• Ng, Franklin, ed. The Asian American Encyclopedia. 6 vols. New York: Cavendish, c1995.

  Kroch Library Asia Reference E184.O6 A827x 1995

• Ng, Franklin, ed. Asians in America: The Peoples of East, Southeast, and South Asia in American Life and Culture. 6 vols. New York: Garland, 1998.

  Kroch Library Asia Reference E184.O6 A866 1998

Networked Resources

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• AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive. [State College, Pa.] : Accuweather, Inc., c1999-.

  The Photo Archive is an on-line database containing almost a half-million of Associated Press's current and historical images for the last 150 years. It features state, regional and national photos from North America, as well as international photos. All are available moments after they move on the AP's spot picture system. The Photo Archive receives an average of 800 photos a day. About a quarter of the photos are selected for the permanent archive, while the rest are removed after 12 months.

• American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library Washington, DC : Library of Congress, National Digital Library Program, 1994-

  Provides information on, and access to, the digitized version of the Library's primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures. Broad topics covered include: agriculture, arts and architecture, history, performing arts, social sciences, etc. Particular collections include: African-American perspectives, Alexander Graham Bell papers, Baseball cards, Civil War photographs, Early motion pictures, and Voices from the Dust Bowl.

• American National Biography. [New York] : Oxford UP, 2000.

  "The landmark American National Biography offers portraits of more than 17,400 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation." The online edition is "updated quarterly, with hundreds of new entries each year and revisions of previously published entries to enhance their accuracy and currency."

• History Resource Center: U.S. [Farmington Hills, MI] : Gale Group, c2000-.

  Provides an integrated collection of primary documents, secondary reference sources, and journal articles covering all areas of U.S. history from pre-colonial times to the present day. Includes full-text coverage of approximately 65 periodicals of interest to students and historians as well as access to the citations for history journals from the Arts & humanities citation index.

• Literature Resource Center. [Farmington Hills, MI] : Gale Group, c1999-.

  "The Literature Resource Center (LRC) is a complete literature reference database designed for the undergraduate student. LRC combines biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information to deliver a complete reference/resource package on authors and their works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism). It includes full text online versions of Contemporary Authors, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and the Encyclopedia of Literature.

• Literature Online (LION). [Alexandria, Va.] : Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., c1999-.

  A full-text collection of poetry, drama, and prose with complementary references sources. Primary texts include English poetry from 600 to the present; American and African-American poetry from 1603 to the present; English drama; English prose; articles, monographs and dissertations from the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature; full-text articles from literary journals; and biographical information on widely studied authors. Subsumed in the database are the contents of several Chadwyck-Healey CD-ROM products, including: The Bible in English; Database of African-American Poetry, 1760-1900; Database of Twentieth Century African American Poetry; Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare; and English Poetry.

• RLG Cultural Materials. Montain View, CA: Research Libraries Group, c2001-2002- .

  The RLG Cultural Materials resource is a multimedia collection of digital versions of manuscripts, photos, art, historical documents and memorabilia, and more, brought together from around the world. Through a flexible Web workspace developed with the materials' special characteristics in mind users can discover, compare, interpret, and make connections between materials in ways that enrich teaching, learning, and scholarship. RLG Cultural Materials is a collaborative effort from an international alliance of RLG member institutions, bringing together primary source materials in high-quality digital form. This resource provides access to authenticated, rights-cleared digital materials.

General Interest and Reference Encyclopædia Britannica Online Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online) Roget's Thesaurus (thesaurus.com) Columbia Encyclopedia Merriam-Webster Online Language Tools (iTools)

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Finding Books

Cornell University Library Catalog

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• About the CU Library Catalog

  The Cornell University Library Catalog includes the holdings of all 17 of the libraries on the Ithaca campus, in addition to those of the Geneva Experiment Station. (The Weill Cornell Medical Library, located in New York City, has a separate catalog.) The catalog contains records for books, computer files, government documents, manuscripts and archives, maps, musical scores, periodicals, serials, sound recordings, and visual materials received and cataloged since 1973. There are also records for most pre-1973 items, and for items that are on order or in process.

• CU Library Catalog Help

  Functions and features of the new web catalog are explained on these pages.

• Click on the Cornell Library Catalog banner to launch a new catalog session:

  

• When to Check the Card Catalog

  Some materials in the humanities and social sciences acquired prior to 1973 have records that have not yet been converted to digital form. Access to these records is through the card catalog located in Olin Library. The card catalog contains cards for authors, titles, and subjects filed in an alphabetical, word-by-word arrangement.

• Understanding Library of Congress Call Numbers

• Library of Congress Classification

  The Cornell University Library uses Library of Congress subject headings as the standard for subject searching. Unlike searching by keyword, where any term or wording of a topic can be entered into the computer, subject searching requires you to use the exact wording of an official Library of Congress subject heading in order to retrieve search results.

• Library Catalogs Worldwide Use other online catalogs to find materials not in the CU Library Catalog.

• Interlibrary Loan Services Use ILLiad (InterLibrary Loan Internet Accessible Database) to borrow materials from other libraries.

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Finding Articles

Indexes, Abstracts, and E-Journals

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Periodical indexes and abstracts are resources that identify and locate articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers.

Finding Periodicals and Periodical Articles

The e-Reference Collection contains titles, descriptive information, and links to over 2000 networked electronic resources, including periodical indexes and abstracts. There are two main ways to search for resources in your areas of interest: searching by title or keyword and browsing through the subject menus.

Multidisciplinary Indexes

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• Lexis Nexis Academic Universe. Dayton, Ohio: Lexis-Nexis, 1997-.

  Lexis-Nexis' Academic Universe provides access to full text resources on topics including current and general news; business and financial information; newspapers; company directories; government and politics; medical and health topics; accounting, auditing, and tax; federal and state laws; legal cases; and regulations. Resources include TV and radio news transcripts.

• Periodical Abstracts (ProQuest). Ann Arbor: Bell & Howell, 1986- .

  Indexes and abstracts approximately 2000 general interest magazines and scholarly journals. It also includes citations and abstracts to selected television and radio programs. Many of the articles found by searching in this database are available in full text electronic formats. Pull down menus allow you to customize your searches by date range, type of resource (newspaper or magazine and journal articles), and by retrieval format (citation, full text, or PDF file which includes graphics). The Database Selection menu allows you to search different sections of the database, including a limit for Peer reviewed articles (scholarly articles).

Specialized Subject Indexes

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• America, History and Life Santa Barbara, CA : ABC-Clio, Inc., c1998- .

  A complete bibliographical reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present, covering over 2000 journals published worldwide.

• Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science). Philadelphia, PA: Institute for Scientific Information, c1975- .

  ISI citation databases are multidisciplinary databases of bibliographic information indexed to be searched by subject, author, journal, and/or author address. They can also be searched for articles that cite a known author or work. Cited reference searching allows use of a given work as if it were a subject term, to identify more recent articles on the same topic.

• Bibliography of Asian Studies. Ann Arbor, Association for Asian Studies, 1946- .

  The online version of the Bibliography of Asian studies (BAS) contains more than 410,000 records on all subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present. Through the 1991 printed version, the BAS included citations to western-language periodical articles, individually authored monographs, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, and Festschriften, etc. Since 1992, newly published individual monographs are no longer being added to the database, and users seeking monographs are urged to consult other general resources and databases (such as RLIN, OCLC, etc.). Print volumes cover back to 1947 (Kroch Asia Ref +Z3001 F2).

• Ethnic NewsWatch. Stamford: Softline Information, 1992- .

  This is a multi-cultural database containing the full-text of articles, columns, and editorials from 125 ethnic and minority American newspapers and news magazines. It includes African-American, Arab-American, Asian-American, Eastern European, European, Hispanic/Chicano/Latino, Jewish, and Native American publications. Spanish-language newspapers are in Spanish; the database is searchable in English and Spanish. Local, national, and international business, economic, political, and social issues are covered in addition to entertainment, fashion and music topics.

• GenderWatch. Stamford, CT: SoftLine Information, 1970- .

  A full-text database of scholarly journals, magazines, newsletters, newspapers and special reports that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas. In addition to women and gender studies topics covered are relevant to culture, education, family, health, international issues, politics, government, religion, sociology and more. All articles are fully indexed -- free text and boolean searching are also available.

• Historical Abstracts. Santa Barbara, CA : ABC-Clio, Inc., c1998-.

  This historical periodical database includes annotated references to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the U.S. and Canada which are covered in "America: History and Life"). Covers over 2000 journals, including historical journals from almost every country and selections of journals in the social sciences and humanities for researchers and students of history.

• MLA International Bibliography. New York: Modern Language Association, 1963- .

  An international index and database providing references to scholarly articles from over 4000 journals dealing with languages, literature, folklore and linguistics. It is useful for finding literary criticism of a particular author or work, as well as articles on literary theory, women's studies, popular culture, and performing arts. The online version of MLA covers 1963 to present. The print version covers 1921 to the present.

• PAIS International. New York: Public Affairs Information Service, 1972 - .

  Contains citations to public policy literature of economics, government, law, international business, political science, public administration, and other social sciences. It includes references to journal articles, books, government documents, reports and pamphlets in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Covers many periodicals in these subjects not indexed elsewhere. Available in print in Olin Reference as: Public Affairs Information Service, Bulletin, 1915 - . (+ Z 7163 P97).

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Internet Resources

Portals, Search Engines, and Subject Guides

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Use web portals, search engines, or Internet subject guides to find resources or sites on the World Wide Web on your topic. Search Engines are software programs that allow you to search the contents of web pages and Subject Guides are web pages that use menus and lists to sort and classify web sites.

Question and evaluate the information that you find on web pages. As you would do with books and journal articles, look to see who is responsible for producing the web page or site that you are accessing. How objective is the information? How accurate or truthful? How authoritative? Go to the Evaluating Sources section of this page for more information on how to assess the web sites you have accessed.

Selected Web Searching Resources

Web Portals	Search Engines	Metasearch Engines
Alta Vista Excite GO.com Hotsheet Lycos MSN Netcenter Yahoo!	About Ask Jeeves Ditto Google iLor HotBot Northern Light Search Engine Colossus	alltheweb Dogpile ixquick Mamma MetaCrawler Search.com

Subject Guides	Other Web Guides	Web Reference
Argus Clearinghouse BUBL Galaxy lii.org OKU Internet Subject Guides WWW Virtual Library	4anything dmoz open directory project LookSmart Top10Links	IPL Ready Reference Infoplease iTools! LibrarySpot refdesk.com xrefer Webopedia

Selected Web Sites Voices from the Gap: Jhumpa Lahiri PBS interview with Jhumpa Lahiri Voice of the Shuttle The India Abroad Center for Political Awareness India Currents SAJA: South Asian Journalist Association

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Personalized Electronic Services featuring MyLinks and MyUpdates.

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Evaluating Sources

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Evaluating the sources you find is a crucial step in the process of library research. The questions you ask about books, periodical articles, or multimedia sources are similar whether you're looking at a citation to the item or have the item in hand.

How to Critically Analyze Information Sources lists some of the critical questions you should ask when you consider the appropriateness of a particular book, article, media resource, or Web site for your research.

Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria shows how to evaluate periodicals by looking at their format, intended audience, and appearance.

Evaluating Web Resources lists ways to analyze the Web sites you find.

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites offers a table of suggestions.

For additional suggestions specific to Web sites, see Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools.

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography

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Citing Sources

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Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity

APA citation style

• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.)

  CU Library Reference locations include Africana, ILR, Mann, Olin, and Uris Libraries at call number: BF 76.7 .A51x 1994. Also in Hotel Reference at PE 1475 .P82 1994.

• APA citation style (Gateway Help)

• APA Reference Examples for Electronic Source Materials Excerpted from the new 5th edition of the Publication Manual.

• APAStyle.org

MLA citation style

• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (5th ed.)

  CU Library Reference locations include Olin and Uris Libraries at call number: LB 2369 .G53x 1999.

• MLA citation style (Gateway Help)

• MLA Style (MLA's web site)

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Research and Reference Help

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• Library Gateway Help

• CU Library Catalog Help

• LiveHelp

  Online CHAT Reference Help service. Available Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

• Olin Kroch Uris Reference e-mail address: okuref@cornell.edu

• Reference Desk Directory

• Reference Desk Schedules in Olin and Uris Libraries
  • Olin Library Reference phone number: 255-4144

  • Uris Library Reference phone number: 255-2339

• OKU Research Consultations

• OKU Spring 2002 Workshop Schedule

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March 4, 2002
Lance Heidig, ljh5@cornell.edu
Reference Services Division, Olin Kroch Uris Libraries
Cornell University Library
URL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/asam485.html

Olin and Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
Information and reference: 607-255-4144, okuref@cornell.edu
Circulation: (Olin) 607-255-4245, (Uris) 607-255-3537, olincirc@cornell.edu