Geography 300

If you don't know by now, you should know that David Harvey is probably the most influential geographer of this generation.  Your first task is to find his latest book held by our library.  You then must record the title and call number.  Next you must go to the library and explore the books next to it on the shelf.  This is an excellent way to find books that are related, but sometimes, somehow slip through your computerized search...especially if you're searching by topic. 

Either from home or in the library open the libarary catalog for books by David Harvey. First go to the Oviatt Library Homepage, then select from the list of resources, "Search the Library Catalog".

In the basic search mode, select the radial button for "Author" and then type in "Harvey, David" (without quotes). Click on the submit search button. Roughly eight authors should return from this search. Two are the same person, though listed separately, others are not the "geographer" David Harvey. Understand that more than one author may have the same name and that you may have to do a bit of research to ensure that you're looking for the correct person.

Question 1: What is the title of the most recent book authored by David Harvey in the Oviatt Library collection (Hint..it's less than 5 years old ).
Answer 1:

Question 2:  Provide the title and author of the book to sitting on the shelf to the right of the book listed in question 1.
Answer 2:

Question 3:  Judging by the book titles sharing the shelf spaces adjacent to Dr. Harvey's most recent effort, the casual observer might guess the David Harvey is not a Geographer, but instead a:  Answer 3:

Question 4:  Which highly influential book, written by David Harvey around 1989 or 1990 is also in the Oviatt Collection?  (You may have to do a bit of searching yourself to answer the question about influence) Answer 4:

Task 2: Researching Journals

Journals are frequently more useful than books. Much of the research done by geographers (and other academics) is published in journals.  Generally produced several times a year, journals represent the primary media through which academic debates are conducted.   Most journals articles are peer reviewed, which means that before an article is published, other academics, frequently other experts from within the discipline, read the article, critique it and demand revisions...or simply reject it.   This screening process generally ensures that the published work is of a relatively high quality....especially compared to articles published by journalists or things you might find on a simple web search. 

Journal articles are more concise than books and typically offer students the most useful tool for doing research on their own.  A search through journals can provide students ideas about the popularity of any particular topic, can provide methodological guidance by providing examples of how other have done similar research and journal articles can also help you make realistic judgments about the effort necessary to produce a piece of original research. 

Step 1: Go to http://library.csun.edu/ first.  Click on the link "Find Articles and Research Data". 

Step 2: You have several options at this point.  One direction you might take is to click on the "Geography" link under the heading "Search for articles by subject". This will open a partial list of databases that may specialize in Geography, Earth Science, etc.

At the top of the Geography Sources page is an option to search multiple Geography-related indices simultaneously. This option has advantages and disadvantages. It is a big time saver, but many searches will result in a massive overload of articles that may prove useless to you. Only a very narrow or unusal search term will likely produce a useable return.

Probably the best starting place is JSTOR, an archive of full text journal articles. JSTOR is fabulous because of its ease of use and full text capabilities, but its selection of journals is limited.  Only 8 popular "geography" journals are included, which is a fraction of what is out there. Nevertheless, I would recommend starting with J-Stor.

After JSTOR, you will probably do well to look in GEOBASE (OCLC) if you are looking for social, cultural and/or economic geography topics, or GeoRef (EBSCO) if you are looking for geomorphology, geologic or earth science topics. The Expanded Academic ASAP (Thompson Gale) has many of the same journals listed. A database not listed under "Geography" that you may want to consider using is the Social Science Index (Wilson Web).  It indexes far more journals than JSTOR, but less of it can be retrieved electronically in full text, though this gets better every year. 

Another option is to click on the link "Databases A-Z" on the top tool bar (http://library.csun.edu/Find_Resources/Databases/index.html).  Among the databases listed here is Academic Search Elite (EBSCO host), which has a lot of good stuff that might not be peer reviewed, but may nevertheless prove helpful. 

Recently removed from the list of resources is an on-line Geographical Bibliography, hosted at U.W. Milwaukee.  It's pretty good, but has some holes in it, but you may be able to use it to find article that you might not find elsewhere..

SCENARIO:

In order to give you some "real world" experience using these databases, you are asked to engage in a hypothetical research assignment. Suppose you want to find out if long-standing accusations of racial/ethnic bias against grocery store chains are true.   Do grocery store chains indeed avoid minority neighborhoods, leaving such neighborhoods with only expensive corner markets and convenience stores?  Use the resources of the Oviatt Library to search for journal articles on grocery store location. You may need to visit each of these search engine sites discussed above in order to answer the following questions. 

Question 5: By using Geobase, find a recent article (2005) about the location of grocery stores in the inner city .  Use key terms: grocery and inner city. What is the name of the journal that published a recent article on this topic? Answer 5:

Question 6: CSUN does not carry this specific issue of this journal.  It appears that some issues are available online. It is now available on line, but if you wanted a hard copy, you would have to request it from another California State University Library.  In what city is the closest CSU carrying this journal? .
Answer 6:

Using Academic Search Elite, find an article about the same subject from a source that is not peer reviewed.  Use search terms "Groceries" and "poor"

Question 7:  One article in the Economist (a journal) looks promising.  What is the date of this piece? Answer 7:

Question 8:  The Wall Street Journal has a piece on a grocery stores chain that is making money by courting the poor.  What is the name of this chain?
Answer 8:

Next try a search using Social Sciences Index (Wilson Web) . 

Often researchers are working on a topic that few others have researched and run into dead ends when they search only by TOPIC.  A good way to get around this roadblock is to search instead for articles that might be similar in METHOD.    For example, suppose you couldn't find anything on the location strategies of grocery store chains.  Maybe you could look for other, perhaps related, retail outlets.

I found an article about the location strategies of convenience stores (which would be highly relevant for a research paper on the location patterns of grocery stores).   Find this article by Noboru Sakashita by using the search terms location and convenience store.

Question 9: Click on the "Find Text" button and look up the Sakashita article. What are the first 4 words of text in this article (not the abstract)?
Answer 9:

Another very important thing to keep in mind as you do a literature search is the role of key words in your search.  Creativity as you search is critical in your success.  If you haven't already, consider using search terms other than "grocery store". Think of a synonym for "large grocery store".   Use that search term and answer the following questions:

Question 10: What is the last name of the author of an article about large grocery stores in Detroit in The American Journal of Public Health?
Answer 10:

Question 11:  Open the text of this article.  This article employed a very useful statistical measure of distance to determine accessibility.  After what city (or neighborhood in a city) is this distance measure named? Answer 11

Finally, go back to the list of library databases.  Select JSTOR from the list of databases.  Use the Advance Search option. You may want to check the box for Geography below the search function area.

Question 12: By search using the key words "urban" and "retail" you'll probably find what appears to be an excellent article by Malcolm Proudfoot in Economic Geography, but this reference may not be of great use to you.  In what year was Mr. Proudfoot's article published? Answer 12

Question 13:  There is an article that discusses differences in retail food stores across different neighborhoods, race and age in a geographic journal from 1983.  What is the last name of this articles' author? Answer 13

Task 3:  Finding Data.   Though there are loads of different research strategies, collecting data is frequently one that challenges students.  I  often recommend that students find data first and THEN come up with a question the data is clearly capable of answering.  In other words, let the data create research questions, instead of thinking of a question and then trying to find (or create) data that you can squeeze into your research question. 

Staying with the grocery store theme, you may find that you would like to map out the location of grocery stores in order to conduct your study.  Where would you go to find this kind of data?   What sort of source would you use.  There are lots of databases that might help you at the Oviatt, including various products by the US Census Bureau (e.g. County Business Patterns), but the data won't be specific enough for street-level mapping.  What you need is something like a phone book.  Of course there are some on-line Yellow Pages, and this might be a possibility, but something that is downloadable would be better, especially if you are hoping to study large city, such as Los Angeles.  Such directories do exist, but the Oviatt Library does not have them as far as can be discerned.    The L.A. Public library has a database that claims to have "Over 12 million businesses compiled from nationwide yellow pages and business sources, searchable by name, industry, SIC, geographic location and size".  Go to the L.A. Public Library site and look up the database with this description.  

Question 14:  Before you can access this database, what do you need ? Answer 14

**Beginning in Summer 2006 this database made itself much less "student friendly" and much harder to use without $$.  You could use the LA County Health department's website, which has a great searchable database of places that sell food (like grocery stores...and restaurants).

Task 4: Find other types of resources in the Oviatt

Suppose you were trying to find some data on air pollution around CSUN and you had to use the Oviatt Library collection to find a database that could help you map the level of air pollution in Los Angeles, for the last 20 years or so, especially in terms of toxic and criteria pollutants. 

There is an electronic (CD-ROM) source produced by the California EPA that could be very helpful to you.  You may want to search under the "Government Publications" link...but you won't find it there...oddly enough.  Find it and answer question 15 below:

Question 15: What is the call number of this resource? Answer 15

Geographers work with other types of data as well, including photographs, sound recordings, artwork, novels, and other cultural artifacts.  The library has a good collection of these types of data as well.   You last task is to find a few of the resources that might inform work you might undertake in a cultural geography course.

Imagine that you are instructed to analyze changes in the cultural landscape of the San Fernando Valley since 1900.   Search the library's digital collections holding and see if you can find a picture of the Oviatt Library itself...immediately after the 1994 earthquake.   

Question 16:  What is the alphanumeric "identifier" of the photograph you found?  (here's a thumbnail)

Perhaps you are wanting to research the history behind the water crisis in California and you understand that William Mulholland had something to do with it, but you'd like some more background.  A documentary movie (VHS or DVD) is an excellent way to help build your background on a topic. The Oviatt Library owns some resource of this nature. Find them. 

Question 17:  What is the name of the series of videos in which the first in the series "tells the dramatic tale behind the irrigation of the Los Angeles basin, to the detriment of the Owens River under the direction of William Mulholland" 

Finally, please make sure that you never fear to ask a librarian.  The Oviatt Library has a geographer on staff that can help you.  You are to navigate the Oviatt Library web page and find this Geographer/Librarian. 

Question 18:  What is the email address the librarian who is a subject specialist in Geography? You can find his name and specialty area in several places on the Oviatt site, but in one spot at least he is listed as a "performance arts" librarian. A request has been made to update that page.

Fill in your information and submit.  You may want to print and/or save a copy of the results page for your records .

Name:

E mail:

Code:

When you click the button below, you will be directed to a web page that shows your answers. The instructor will get a copy of this email as well, but you may want to keep a copy for your records. If you are curious about the correct answers, please bring your questions to class or request that Dr. Graves email answer to you.