1 Wasserman, T. Searching EBSCOhost. ILS 504/Spr 09.

Okobi

Terry Wasserman
Searching EBSCO Assignment
Spring 2009/ILS 504
Professor Okobi
2 Wasserman, T. Searching EBSCOhost. ILS 504/Spr 09. Okobi

Introduction:

In this assignment we were asked to review EBSCOhost and learn to use it

proficiently. We were then assigned three questions to answer using only scholarly

journals from EBSCOhost.

1. Information on Stolen Art published within the past two years:

In order to search for the most pertinent information, I thought it prudent to search

multiple databases via EBSCOhost. Given the nature of the topic, I chose to

simultaneously search the following databases: Academic Search Premier; America:

History & Life; Art Abstracts; Historical Abstracts; History Reference Center;

Humanities International Complete; International Political Science Abstracts; Military &

Government Collection; MLA International Bibliography.

I chose Academic Search Premier because of the likelihood of finding useful

scholarly articles there. I chose the History Reference Center because this historically-

minded database was likely to have references to historical works of art that had been

stolen (theft of items of historical significance being shockingly common). I chose

Humanities International Complete and because the theft of art is an international

problem that affects most humanities disciplines throughout the world. I chose

International Political Science Abstract because the theft of (important) art is a political

problem and the transportation of stolen art often happens internationally. Lastly, I chose

Art Abstracts because there is a chance that the theft of an artwork would be discussed

within a journal devoted to the study of art. Interestingly, I found relevant titles in all the

databases except the International Political Science Abstract database.

3 Wasserman, T. Searching EBSCOhost. ILS 504/Spr 09. Okobi

In order to find relevant materials, I performed a Boolean search. After much trial

and error, I found that the best results were found via the following search terms: art

AND (stolen OR theft). I limited the search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals and

filtered the publication date to 2006-2009. Initially, I had tried to use the subject

searches, but found many more irrelevant references that way. I retrieved 51 titles, some

of which were off-topic (for instance, an article referencing a sculpture entitled “Stolen”),

but the following bibliography includes the best results.

I found the following articles this way:

Minyard, K. 2007. Adding Tools to the Arsenal: Options for Restitution from the
Intermediary Seller and Recovery for Good-Faith Possessors of Nazi-Looted Art. Texas
International Law Journal, 43(1), 115-134. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Ama. 2007. From Mythologies to Realities: The Iconography of Ras Daniel

Heartman. Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 23, 66-87. from Academic
Search Premier.

Apter, E. 2008. What is Yours, Ours, and Mine: Authorial Ownership and the
Creative Commons. October(Cambridge, Mass.), 126, 91-114. Retrieved from Art
Abstracts.

Bowman, B. 2008. Transnational Crimes Against Culture: Looting at

Archaeological Sites and the “Grey” Market in Antiquities. Journal of Contemporary
Criminal Justice, 24(3), 225-242. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Carstens, A. 2007. Examining the Claims of “Universal Museums” and the Please
of “Nations Stolen Blind”: a Review of “Imperialism, Art and Restitution.” Art Antiquity
and Law, 12(2), 179-190. Retrieved from Art Abstracts.

Gerstenblith, P. 2008. 2007 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary. Journal of Field

Archaeology,33(1), 102-110. Retrieved from Humanities International Complete.

Graham, E. 2007. Buddha’s Jigsaw. American Scholar, 76 (3), 19. Retrieved from
History Reference Center.

Jackson, M. 2008. Archaeology, Looting and the Luxury Arts in the XXI Century.
Art Antiquity and Law, 13 (1), 59-73. Retrieved from Art Abstracts.
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Lane, D., Bromley, D., Hicks, R. & Mahoney, J. 2008. Time Crime: The
Transnational Organization of Art and Antiquities Theft. Journal of Contemporary
Criminal Justice, 24(3), 243-262. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Legge, E. 2008. “A Better Place”: Bureaucratic Poetics in Vera Frenkel’s “Body

Missing” and “The Institute.” Journal of Canadian Art History, 29, 90-115. Retrieved
from Art Abstracts.

Luke, C. & Kersel, M. 2008. Archaeological Heritage and Ethics. Journal of

Field Archaeology, 33(1), 101-102. Retrieved from Humanities International Complete.

Nemeth, E. 2007. Cultural Security: The Evolving Role of Art in International

Security. Terrorism & Political Violence, 19(1), 19-42. Retrieved from Humanities
International Complete.

Prott, L. 2007. Van Leeuwen, the Compulsive Collector. Art Antiquity and Law,
12 (1), 111-112. Retrieved from Art Abstracts.

2. Reader’s Advisory Services Bibliography: Five articles published within the past five

years, some of which should be full-text.

In order to research appropriate articles in academic journals, I chose to search the

Library Information Science and Technology Abstracts database. I chose this database

because it was by far the most relevant to the topic at hand.

I performed a Boolean search for reader AND advisory, limiting the publication

year to 2004-2009 and searching only for scholarly or peer-reviewed journals. I chose to

only view Academic Journals and not Reviews. When I limited my search (50 results)

further to include only the subject Readers’ advisory services (9 results), a number of

relevant articles disappeared, so I undid that limitation. I found the following references

as the best examples of the search:

Chang, H. & Maxwell, T. 2007. Short Paper. A synergistic alternative to readers’

advisory services: managing customer knowledge. Information Research, 12, 1-11.
Retrieved from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database.
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Hollands, N. & Trott, B. 2006. Improving the Model for Interactive Readers’
Advisory Service. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 45(3), 205-212.

Moyer, J. & Weech, T. 2005. The education of public librarians to serve leisure
readers in the United States, Canada and Europe. New Library World, 106(1/2), 67-79.
Retrieved from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database.

Trott, B. & Van Fleet, C. 2008. Education for Readers’ Advisory Service in
Library and Information Science Programs, Challenges and Opportunities. Reference &
User Services Quarterly, 47(3), 224-229. Retrieved from Library, Information Science &
Technology Abstracts database.

Trott, B. 2008. Building on a Firm Foundation: Readers’ Advisory over the Next
Twenty-Five Years. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 48 (2), 132-135. Retrieved
from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database.

I chose these five articles because I thought they would best suit a course

discussion—the Chang articles being an interesting devil’s advocate, the Hollands article

claims to give assistance in improving readers’ advisory services, the Moyer article

discussing the education of librarians’ on the topic at hand and the two Trott articles being

very much on topic and au currant. All of the articles from Reference & User Services

Quarterly (Hollands’ and the two Trott articles) are available in PDF full text versions.

3. Perform a visual search to find images of Durban, South Africa and its environs and

take a screenshot of the visual search.

In order to search for images on EBSCOhost, I chose to search the Image

Collection. I then double-clicked on Visual Search and chose all of the possible image

types except Map, which did not seem relevant. I did a Boolean search of Durban AND

South AND Africa and retrieved 25 images, nearly all of which were copyrighted by the

Canadian Press (3 were UPI and 4 were Getty Images). However, few of pictures were

good images of the city itself. The following were the best images I located:
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Cestari, K. 2006. Mr Price Pro Women’s Surfing Championship in Durban, South

Africa. Retrieved from EBSCOhost Image Collection, UPI copyright.

Chiasson, P. 1999. Stellawood Cemetary in Durban, South Africa. Retrieved from

EBSCOhost Image Collection, Canadian Press copyright.

Getty Images. 1999. Entrance to Durban Harbor. Retrieved from EBSCOhost

Image Collection, Getty copyright.

The following is a screenshot of my visual search for images of Durban, South Africa.

New Features on ESBCO

As of February 23, 2009, there are six new features on EBSCO: two new digital

archival collections and four new user-friendly features meant to enhance the researchers

use of EBSCOhost. The two new digital archives are both currently in beta version (ie.

not the finished, complete version). The first is the American Antiquarian Society’s
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Historical Periodical Collection which contains a set of titles from the Revolutionary War

period, but will eventually contain titles from the 17th to 19th centuries of American

history. The second digital collection is the American Theological Library Association’s

Historical Monographs Collection which contains titles from theological or religious

works written between the 13th and early 20th centuries; mostly the 19th century.

The features include SmartText which searches for relevant results if the initial

search results in zero hits, Image QuickView Searching which permits searching of image

titles and captions as well as limiting image types (charts, photos or diagrams) and Search

History enhancements which now allow the user to delete multiple searches, rerun/update

searches after switching databases and a new Preference to clear the Find field once the

search has appeared in Search History. In addition, the EBSCOhost Content Viewer

allows users to look at historical documents in ways that not only approximate the actual

handling of documents but are actually improvements over the physical reality of

examining a document. The Content Viewer allows the user to zoom, pan, rotate, find

word-matches, has machine-generated optical character recognition and more.

Summary:

Through this exercise I mastered EBSCOhost, which to my mind is no small feat.

I also came to realize its pitfalls. Though peer-reviewed article was always checked off,

general and popular articles often appeared in the results. And the publication dates

typed in in the basic search were never adhered to, though it was easy to fix this problem

in the result screen. But the biggest downfall of this search has been the Durban, South

Africa image search. Through Google I was able to find many more useful images than
8 Wasserman, T. Searching EBSCOhost. ILS 504/Spr 09. Okobi

via EBSCOhost. All told, this was a difficult, but very worthwhile assignment for a

budding librarian.