Need Sources for Your {fill in subject here} Paper? Check Out Our Research Guides!

Posted: January 15, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Databases, Ekstrom Library, Research Tips | Tags: | Leave a comment

By Anna Marie Johnson, 01/15/2013

So, your professor said you needed more credible sources…where do you go to get them?  Google?  Yeah, maybe if you want to sift through blogs, videos, random web pages, and all kinds of other fascinating but not exactly relevant information.  What if there was a web page, created specifically for your major, that listed places to go to find academic/scholarly information?  Well, good news, there is!  UofL’s Research Guides are web pages created by librarians that list library databases of articles (and other types of info) that can help you with your papers.  Although each research guide might look slightly different, they all have several consistent “tabs” across the top: Find Articles, Books, Primary Sources, Course Guides, Citing Sources, and Help.

ResearchGuides

The Find Articles tab guides you to databases where you can find scholarly and popular magazine articles that discuss topics in this subject area.  These library databases are sort of like “gated communities” because you have to be a member of the UofL community to access the articles which are only available by a paid subscription.

The Books tab leads you to sources where you can find in-depth information in print or electronic book form.

Depending on the subject area, Primary Sources might lead you to library databases or free websites that have original documents for the field of study.

Sometimes, in addition to the research guide, a librarian will also modify a guide for a particular course pointing students to the specific sources they need to complete a research assignment. These can be found under the Course Guides tab.

The Citing Sources tab jumps to a page that lists particular citation style guides such as MLA, APA 6th, Chicago/Turabian as well as software or websites that can help you cite with the click of a button.

The Help tab will indicate who the subject librarian is for that area with his/her contact information and has a chat box available in case you have an immediate question.

Librarians are open to suggestions, so if you think of something that would be helpful to you to have on these guides, let us know!  Take a minute and explore Ekstrom Library’s Research Guides today!

Visual Clues to Kentucky’s History: Sanborn Fire Insurance Map

Posted: September 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Databases, Louisville, Louisville History | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

By Anna Marie Johnson,  09/13/2012

Are you and your students sick and tired of run-of-the-mill research assignments? Do you have an interest in urban architecture, genealogy, business, history, sociology or anthropology? Would your students like to explore Louisville? The University Libraries has an online resource that can help! The Sanborn Fire Insurance maps were “created to assist fire insurance companies as they assessed the risk associated with insuring a particular property.” They are “large scale plans of a city or town, drawn at a scale of 50 feet to an inch.” Using them, one can trace the development and change in neighborhoods, particular blocks, or whole cities. UofL’s collection includes maps from all Kentucky towns and the dates range from 1867-1970.

Using the maps, students could explore why streets are named in particular ways, how land use has changed over time, how business has changed over time. How businesses used to be clustered and why. They could walk the current streets and compare them to the maps, noting changes or similarities. For example one map from 1892 in the Butchertown area of Louisville shows a meat packing plant and a brewery next to Beargrass Creek. Students could discuss why these businesses would have chosen that location, for example.

The level of detail on the maps is truly astonishing. “Textual information on construction details (for example, steel beams or reinforced walls) is often given on the plans while shading indicates different building materials. Extensive information on building use is given, ranging from symbols for generic terms such as stable, garage, and warehouse to names of owners of factories and details on what was manufactured in them. In the case of large factories or commercial buildings, even individual rooms and the uses to which they were put are recorded on the maps. Other features shown include pipelines, railroads, wells, dumps, and heavy machinery.”

small section of a Sanborn map

The Sanborn maps could be used in conjunction with the digital Kentucky map collection available from UofL Digital Collections. Check out the Sanborn maps here: http://sanborn.umi.com/. Contact one of the Reference Librarians for help! 852-6747.

Meet Your Reference Librarian: Anna Marie Johnson

Posted: January 19, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: People, University of Louisville Libraries | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

By Anna Marie Johnson, 01/19/2012 Anna Marie Johnson picture

  • Formal Title: Head, Reference and Information Literacy Dept. and Associate Professor
  • Department: Reference
  • Specialty: Humanities subjects, EndNote, and I’ll pretty much take a crack at any other subjects
  • Years with the Ekstrom Library: 16
  • What’s the coolest thing about working in the library: working with really smart people.
  • Interesting reference question: Pretty much any question—hunting for the information is what I enjoy the most.
  • Book I’m currently reading: Reading Wide Awake by Patrick Shannon; Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
  • Favorite Web 2.0 Tool: LibGuides (professional—it has made creation of help guides so much easier!) and Flickr (personal—I could spend hours!)
  • What’s needed in the 21st Century Classroom: Time to think and reflect away from clicking.
  • Dream profession (other than librarian): Storyteller or owner of a small café/used book store; teaching small children to swim.
  • Interesting fact: My family has three chickens.
  • Contact information:

Email: annamarie@louisville.edu

Phone: (502) 852-1491

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