1.
WGST 2P91
LIBRARY TIPS AND
TRICKS
Jennifer Thiessen, Liaison Librarian for Women’s and Gender
Studies
February 2013

2.
Today’s Agenda
 Searching for articles
 Choosing the best database
 Historical Abstracts/America: History & Life
 MLA International Bibliography
 Feminae
 Gender Studies Database
 Group Work: Explore topic—e.g. witchcraft
 Discussion
 Writing Tips/Help

3.
Group Work
 Explore your assigned database by
searching for resources on a topic of your
choosing
 Databases:
 Historical Abstracts/America:History & Life
 MLA International Bibliography
 Feminae
 Gender Studies

4.
Guiding questions…
 Your task as a group: Explore your database
using the following questions to guide your
investigation.
 Ideas for searching: witchcraft, eugenics,
suffrage
 What is included in the database?
 Subject coverage? Date coverage?
 Can you get peer-reviewed articles? How?
 How can you get to the full text of an article?
 Other tips on making your search better?

5.
AMERICA: HISTORY &
LIFE/HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS
 America: History & Life
 History
of Canada and the U.S.
 Coverage: prehistory – present
 Historical Abstracts
 History of all countries EXCEPT Canada and the
U.S.
 Coverage: 1450-present (i.e., won’t cover early
middle ages)
 Both databases contain journal articles

6.
AMERICA: HISTORY &
LIFE/HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS

7.
MLA INTERNATIONAL
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 journals, series,
books, working
papers,
conference
proceedings
 modern
language,
literature,
linguistics, and
folklore

8.
FEMINAE
 covers journal articles, book reviews, and
essays in books about women, sexuality, and
gender during the Middle Ages

9.
FEMINAE
Search Results
1. Record Number: 28004
Author(s): Scudieri, Novello, Check Library Catalogue
Contributor(s):
Title :A Trial for Witchcraft at Todi (1428)
Source: Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation Edited by Katherine L. Jansen, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews .
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Pages 203 - 215.
Year of Publication: 2009.
24. Record Number: 9340
Author(s): Broedel, Hans Peter.
Contributor(s):
Title :To Preserve the Manly Form from So Vile a Crime: Ecclesiastical Anti-Sodomitic Rhetoric and the Gendering
of Witchcraft in the "Malleus Maleficarum" [Broedel argues that Heinrich Krämer, the author, with the help of Jacob
Sprenger, of the "Malleus maleficarum," adopted the language and critiques of sodomy to describe witchcraft, thus
making it a crime of deviant sexuality. Since women were naturally p
Source: Essays in Medieval Studies (Full Text via Project Muse) 19 (2002): 136-148. Link Info
Year of Publication: 2002.
Click for full text

10.
GENDER STUDIES
DATABASE
 Interdisciplinary
 gender-related
topics: women's
studies, men's
studies, ethnic
studies, health,
sexual diversity
 Also good for
historical topics.

11.
Summary of Search Tips
 Use the * symbol to search for alternate endings (e.g.,
work* = worker, workers, working, etc.) Note: this doesn’t work in
Feminae!
 Use the ? symbol to search for different spellings (e.g.,
wom?n = women, woman) Note: this doesn’t work in Feminae!
 Pay attention to limits (e.g., peer-reviewed journals,
language, historical period)
 Narrow/focus your search by using subject
terms/descriptors

12.
Questions?
 Women’s and Gender Studies Research
Guide
 http://researchguides.library.brocku.ca/WISE
 Library Help
 Help Desk
 http://brocku.ca/library/help-lib
 Jennifer Thiessen
 jthiessen@brocku.ca
Please fill out evaluation form:
http://bit.ly/WGST2p91