libraries

[Susan Ervin-Tripp]

I recently received a note making the comment that the
library computer system doesn't go back to the sixties.
I would like to add that all databases I have used are VERY
incomplete even for recent publications. They are just a starting point.
There are two ways to extend these very limited searches.

One is the good old fashioned way of reading some key, basic
books or summary articles and following up the references.
If these authors are responsible, they will cite the ORIGINAL
theorists, so you can find them by using your journal and book
catalogue directly.

The other is to identify  key authors about a topic and use the Social Science
Citation Index to follow who has cited them. Going back and forth
from these tracer authors to the citers can give you good coverage
on a topic.

Now that we have computers and computer databases we like to be
lazy. Just to test, I found less than a quarter of my own publications,
even recent ones, can be found this way, because the system is not
designed for cross-disciplinary work.
It also makes me sad that publications before the
seventies will drop into a black hole.

Does anyone want to add some other search tricks to overcome these
limits?

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Susan M. Ervin-Tripp                     tel (510) 642-5292
Professor Emeritus                       FAX (510) 642-5293
Psychology Department                 ervintrp at socrates.berkeley.edu

University of California
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/
  Berkeley CA 94720
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