Yesterday, my son, Alex, who’s studying graphics design in college, asked for advice on a research project. The project involves learning about marketing strategy, specifically the way trends drive changes in existing products (hybrid cars, yogurt and fruit snacks in McDonald’s Happy Meals). The instructor advised students to find an article on topic in the library (his emphasis).
So, when I suggested we search advertising trade publications in LexisNexis Academic, Alex balked. He understood “in the library” to mean publications physically housed in the library’s collection. He envisioned flipping through print issues of whatever magazines I would suggest.
I’m a professional librarian, an expert on online research strategies and resources, an adjunct instructor of database and Web search skills at a major university. I’ve lectured and published extensively on research issues. Yet I’ve failed to convey what a library is to my son. Shame on me.
What his instructor meant was, use established industry-recognized sources. The reason he wrote “in the library” is because this is where students may reliably find such sources. In today’s world, however, students may benefit from the library’s guidance without ever leaving their dorm. They may access thousands of databases by logging in to their school’s library Web site.
If you aren’t a student, a relatively new sister product to LexisNexis Academic, called LexisNexis Library Express, as well as other reputable databases, may be available to you through your local public library. Check out the library’s Web page.
Identifying useful databases and constructing productive queries is a lot more work than searching Google. The reward is the quality of the information you find. This isn’t to say you can’t find information of quality through Google. But databases selected by your library – whether a school, public or corporate library - will consistently provide the kind of information you can rely on.
This was the teacher’s point. He wasn’t being old-fashioned or a stick-in-the-mud. He was trying to lead students to the resources they will have to use as young professionals.
What does this have to do with historical fiction? It has so much to do with it, I can’t discuss it all in one posting. For now, suffice it to say that the quality of a historical novel depends in large part on the quality of the research into the historical place, event or person. If the author doesn’t have an accurate understanding of the history, this fact will turn up in one form or another in the story (e.g., the many anachronisms in Pillars of the Earth).
