Research | Library Blog - Indiana University East

Research

African American History – Finding free, quality resources online

african american history, free resources, good information, open access August 31, 2020 Jesse Whitton, Research, Website mdilwort

What are Open Access Resources (OARs)? These are research materials that have been made freely available to the public, allowing users online access to information that otherwise may not be available. Here we feature a curated list of Open Access Resources about African American History. The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (AARL) was the first public library in the Southeast U.S. to offer specialized reference and archival collections dedicated to the study and research of African American culture and the history of those who are of African descent. Every Thursday, the AARL hosts a series of instructional workshops supporting the ongoing “development of foundational information and literacy and research skills, while promoting library resources and … Continued

How to Master Research

good information, reference databases, Research, scholarly resources August 17, 2020 Library Resources, Library Services, Matt Dilworth, Research, Website mdilwort

You can become a research expert and the librarians at the IU East Campus Library are here to help! Doing library research may seem quite complex at first. How do you distinguish what the scholarly sources are, and where to find them? What about ‘primary’ sources? The interface of a library research database can look more complicated than you are used to. However, in order to get better information for academic work, you need better tools. You need to know where to look, how to choose the words you will search with, what syntax to use, how to exclude information you don’t want, and how to critically evaluate what you get back. The library has created a multidisciplinary guide to … Continued

Go to the sources! Primary sources at IU East

KT Lowe, primary sources August 10, 2020 Library Resources, Research mdilwort

A primary source is an original “real thing.” It could be a song written in your favorite artist’s handwriting – maybe even on the back of an envelope. Or Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of one of his early paintings. It could even be your family’s old Bible, with the names of your ancestors written, with dates of birth, marriage and other life events. “Real things” come in a variety of forms, shapes, contexts and types. Through IU East, you have access to a number of these types of documents. Check out these highlights! African American Communities This database includes a variety of materials related to the African American experience, across multiple communities. From documentation of segregation and racist activity against … Continued

Raiding the Corporate Info

business, reference databases, Research July 20, 2020 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

When thinking about research, we often think about searching for discrete, published items – books, journal articles, videos. But some information is quite different, and some is fluid and ever-changing. One area where this is the case is corporate research, whether examining a specific company or looking into a whole sector of the national or global economy. As businesses change and adapt and merge and re-strategize, the information about them fluctuates constantly, and researchers of any kind – investors, academics, etc. – need tools which keep up with the changes. For an individual company, stock prices, corporate strategies, and financials are likely to be major points of interest. Mergent Online or Hoover’s Company Records are solid databases for this – search by … Continued

Living in Interesting Times

history, oral history, primary sources July 13, 2020 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

Do you keep a diary? In times of crisis, firsthand, contemporaneous accounts are among the most valuable to the historians of later decades. We call these ‘primary’ sources – those created by the people who lived the events that are described. Letters and diaries have long been fertile sources for understanding history, and the blogs and emails of today will likely inform the historians of tomorrow. While our times can seem unprecedented, calamities of various sorts have always shaped the eras they happened in. The Influenza pandemic of 1918, commonly called the Spanish Flu, is often held up as a comparison to today’s struggle with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Studying how people survived previous crises and catastrophes; and the lived experience … Continued