2. General Search Strategies: Step 1
Step 1: Gaining a foothold
• Knutson, Ellen. “New Realities: Libraries in Post-Soviet Russia.” Library Trends, Vol 55,
No.3 (“Libraries in Times of War, Revolution, and Social Change,” edited by W. Boyd
Rayward and Christine Jenkins), pp. 716-729
• List of databases and catalogs, general to specific
• WorldCat, Ebsco, JSTOR, Proquest Dissertations and Theses, CEEOL, INION (Institute of
Scientific Information for Social Sciences), etc.
• University of Illinois catalog, archives
• WorldCat, Jstor, ScienceDirect, UIUC catalog
3. General Search Strategies: Step 2
• Step 2: Branching out
• Journal Articles:
• Check author, journal (specific volume and issue), related articles (if
available), keywords (dependent on database), and larger database
• Books:
• Author, bibliography, references and citations
• Films/Theses
• Directors, keywords, database
4. Knutson, Ellen. “New Realities: Libraries in Post-Soviet
Russia.” Library Trends, Vol 55, No.3 (“Libraries in Times of
War, Revolution, and Social Change,” edited by W. Boyd
Rayward and Christine Jenkins), pp. 716-729 (Bibliography)
Knutson, Ellen. “Building civic literacy for democracy : Russian libraries and civil society.” Thesis. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2002.
Knutson, Ellen. “Libraries, Community and Change in Post -Soviet Russia: The Case of the Bryansk Regional Public Library System.” Thesis. University of
Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2008.
Library Trends
IFLA Journal
The Slavonic and East European Review
The Library Quarterly: Information,
Community, Policy
The International Information & Library
Review
Peiss, Kathy. “Cultural Policy in a Time of War: The
American Response to Endangered Books in
World War II.”
Domier, Sharon. “From Reading Guidance to
Thought Control: Wartime Japanese Libraries.”
5. Knutson, Ellen. “New Realities:
Libraries in Post-Soviet Russia.”
Library Trends, Vol 55, No.3
(Bibliography)
Kuzmin, E. “From totalitarianism to
democracy: Russian libraries in
transition.” American Libraries, 24.
1993.
Greening. “Ten Years in the life of
Russian libraries.” International
Information and Library Review, 27.
1995.
International Information and
Library Review
Jean-Philippe Accart. “The health sciences
library network in Russia.” International
Information and Library Review, 24 (4). 1992.
ScienceDirect
Zazersky. “System of librarians'
training in the U.S.S.R.” International
Library Review, 6 (2). 1974.
Kuzmin, E. “Russian Libraries in
the Context of Social, Economic
and Political Reforms.” IFLA
Journal, 21 (2). 1995.
General Search
Strategies Step 3:
Repeat process as
needed
6. Topic Specific Concerns: Terms
• General terms v. Specific
• International libraries (JSTOR- 157,225) v. Russian libraries (40,226)
• Bothma. Access to libraries and information : towards a fairer world. The
Hague:IFLA/FAIFE. 2007.
• Libraries in the early 21st century : an international perspective. Ed. by Sharma,
Ravindra. Berlin: De Grutyer Saur. 2012.
• Search difficulties:
• Volodin, Boris. “History of Librarianship, Library History, or Information History: A View
from Russia.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 70 (4). 2000.
• Not even first page of results
• Russia v. USSR v. Soviet Union
7. Topic Specific Concerns: Dates and Focuses
• Difficulty in finding recent information, but renewed interest in topic
in 2000s
• 2012, 2006, 2010, 1999, etc…
• Importance of keeping track of process, outlines
• Narrowing topic to manageable proportions: public libraries v.
academic libraries, and the difficulty therein in general sources; larger
v. rural libraries
• Pilch, Janet. “National Library of Russia.” Encyclopedia of Russian History, vol
3. Ed. by Millar, James. Macmillan Reference USA. 2004.
8. Topic Specific Concerns: Perspectives
• Library community: Journals
• Library Trends; IFLA Journal; The Slavonic and East European Review; The Library
Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, The International Information & Library
Review, etc.
• Even books and dissertations come from this community, especially UIUC
• Russia v. USA v. China, urban v. rural, during v. post-Soviet era
• Difficulty in finding Soviet sources during Soviet era
• Chandler, George. “Public libraries in the U.S.S.R.: Soviet studies.” International Library
Review, 3 (4). 1971.
• Leonov, Valerie. Libraries in Russia: history of the Library of the Academy of Sciences from
Peter the Great to present. München: Saur. 2005.
• (Director of Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences).
9. Zotero: Pros
• Efficient: about an hour to install and learn basics
• Excellent way to keep track of resources, no worrying about URLs
• Icons corresponding to format
• Automatic conversion in toolbar
• Free
10. Zotero: Cons
• Accuracy concerns in using toolbar
• Publisher, place of publishing
• Depends on site construction
• Leaves blank, especially author v. editor
• Libraries in the early 21st century : an international perspective. Ed. by Sharma, Ravindra.
Berlin: De Grutyer Saur. 2012.
• Format
• Ebooks v. web page v. document
• Invisible failed downloads
• Lack of streamlined interface, field by field
11. Zotero: Cons
• Can’t simply copy citation even when on webpage
• Lack of organized instructions, main page with comprehensive links
• For PDFs, Word documents, downloading, errors, etc.
• Download PDFs? Import from Word document?
12. Zotero: Judgment
• Overall: Flaws but still worth it; time and practice will smooth
process, and saves having to do it completely by hand
13. Summary
• To go about gathering sources on this topic:
• Consider keywords, general and specific carefully, being sure not overlook
general terms such as “international”
• Keep a list of useful databases, general v. specific in theme
• With more time, make serious attempts to try and find non-LIS sources and
journals
• Finding one good source often opens the door to several others
• Make an outline and form thesis as you go, focusing on what information you
are still lacking, particularly varying perspectives and time periods
