Social Studies 98

1. Build on what you have already: the "item in hand" approach.

You already know the value of examining footnotes and bibliographies for related scholarship or for identifying primary source material.  And you know that whenever you find material by these means, a quick HOLLIS search by book or article title will identify your access options.

Sometimes, though, you want to look beyond the item in hand -- not look at its antecedents but at its descendants -- the scholarship produced later, that has cited your item in its bibliography and footnotes. Following citation trails is a common scholarly practice.

For that strategy, Google Scholar is a great option. Enter the book or article title, and click on Cited By.   Also try Related Articles: the algorithmic way of identifying works that share something significant: emphasis, source materials, key terms, etc. 

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2. Look for a more or less recent research overview on your topic or its broader dimensions.

Literature reviews help you easily understand—and contextualize—the principal contributions that have been made in your field. They not only track trends over time in the scholarly discussions of a topic, but also synthesize and connect related work. They cite the trailblazers and sometimes the outliers, and they even root out errors of fact or concept. Typically, they include a final section that identifies remaining questions or future directions research might take.

The historical equivalent of this academic genre is the historiography.

Review essays  are common in humanities fields. Typically, a scholar will take two or three recent, related publications as an occasion to discuss larger trends, approaches, and research directions. 

Strategies for Locating Research Overviews, Review Essays, and Reviews:

• Annual Reviews are a well-known, time-tested source of stand-alone scholarly literature reviews. You may identify something recent and relevant there to jump start your source discovery.
• In subject databases, like those described below, you'll often be able to limit by literature review or review essay or historiography. You may need look for these these filters under the document type or methodology category. 
• In dissertations, lit reviews commonly appear as an introductory or preliminary chapter. Try ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Dissertations aren't peer-reviewed the same way published articles and academic books are, but they can also be a source for topics that are emerging, trending, or very current. 
• Book length handbooks (also called companions) are typically edited collections of the important, enduring, or agenda-setting scholarship. Since titles often announce them as such, try adding the search term handbook or companion to a HOLLIS topic search.

Examples: 

Harvey, Penelope, Casper Bruun Jensen, and Atsurō Morita. 2016. Infrastructures and Social Complexity : A Companion. New York: Routledge.

Heathcott, Joseph. 2022. The Routledge Handbook of Infrastructure Design : Global Perspectives from Architectural History. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Felt, Ulrike. 2017. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Fourth edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

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3. Check to see if a good subject bibliography can direct your reading.

Oxford Bibliographies Online is the database of curated reading lists, and we recommend it for this approach. 

Selective rather than exhaustive and combining a bit of description with a little bit of evaluation, OBO entries help you identify some of the most important and influential scholarship on a broad social, political, cultural or interdisciplinary disciplinary topic.

Often the issue in information-seeking isn't scarcity of material but overabundance. OBO entries can help you solve the dilemma of knowing who to read first, what to read for, or simply which voices in the conversation you should give some fuller attention to.

Sample Entries

• Materiality (Anthropology module)
• Urban Anthropology (Urban Studies module)
• Global South (Literary and Critical Theory module)
• Homelessness in the United States (Urban Studies module)
• Space and Place (Anthropology module)
• Practice Turn in International Relations (International Relations Module)

KEY DISCIPLINARY DATABASES

Anthropology Plus

Why:  AP combines the contents of two essential databases:  Anthropological Index (produced by the Royal Anthropological Institute, UK) and Anthropological Literature (originally produced at Harvard's Tozzer Library and now maintained by the Peabody Museum here).  It is considered the resource that most comprehensively convers anthropology, archaeology, subdisciplines, and related interdisciplinary research.

APA PsycInfo 

Why: Produced by the American Psychological Association’s (APA), the renowned U.S. association for researchers and practictions, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health.

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals (EBSCOhost)

Why:  Published by the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, it is the only comprehensive American guide to the current literature of architecture and design. The index covers international, scholarly and popular periodical literature, including publications of professional associations; US state and regional periodicals; and major serial publications in the architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia.

Philosopher's Index (EBSCOhost)

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

Why: A core resource for Social Studies students ecause of its concentrated access to research in sociology, social planning/policy, and related disciplines. Coverage is global. It includes citations and abstracts from over 1800 journals, relevant dissertations, selected books and book chapters, and association papers, as well as citations for book reviews and other media.

Urban Studies Abstracts (EBSCOhost)

 

 

MULTIDISCIPLINARY STARTING POINTS

Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost)

Why: The advantages of Academic Search Premier are 1) its multidisciplinary; 2) its inclusion of very recent content; 3) its mix of scholarly, news, and magazine content.

JSTOR

Why: This tried and true database is probably one of the first places you learned to search for scholarly literature. "Smallish" (in relative terms), it's also mighty because the journals it includes are those that, historically, have been considered the most important and most impactful in the fields they cover.  

One nice feature of JSTOR is the ability to zero in on a particular discipline. Scanning the left side limits after you run a straight keyword search might help you pinpoint where the scholarly conversation is clustering (history, Asian studies, urban studies, etc.)

One downside of JSTOR: it typically excludes the most recent 1-5 years of the publications it includes (with some exceptions). That means you may want to supplement / update with  in HOLLIS,  Google Scholar, or one of the subject databases described below. 

Google Scholar

Why: GS searches differently from most library databases, including HOLLIS. In addition to searching "metadata" (lots of descriptive info about a book or article, it also searches full-text . This can be an additional advantage when you've got a very narrow topic or are seeking a "nugget" that traditional database searching can't surface easily.

Google Scholar incorporates more types of information -- not just books and journal contents-- and depending on your need, comfort level, and perspective, that eclecticism can be an advantage.

For reasons we describe in the previous section, GS is also an excellent way to follow citation trails. 

THREE WAYS TO SOLVE AN ACCESS ISSUE

• Google Scholar Settings: One simple change can turn Scholar into what's effectively a Harvard database -- with links to the full-text of articles that the library can provide. Here's what to do:  Look to the left of the GS screen and click on the "hamburger" (); then click on .  Look for "Library Links."  Then type Harvard University into the search box and save your choice.  As long as you allow cookies, the settings will keep.