» Ethnology
Prepared for Anthropology 340Monograph Studies
Monographs, a.k.a. books, frequently present an integrated report of significant and long term research done in a field. For this reason, beginning a research project by reviewing relevant book publications is often an effective and efficient research strategy. In particular, review of the prefaces and introductions to these materials may be good starting points.- eLocation: NKUIRE
- Access: Unrestricted. Coverage: Search here for ethnographic studies in NKU's book collection. With a BASIC, SUBJECT search for ETHNOLOGY you will see works subdivided by geographic regions as well as guides to doing ethnographic research. For examples, see books listed with the subject heading ETHNOLOGY - FIELD WORK. You can also search for reports of ethnographies in specific settings in the ADVANCED SEARCH module of NKUIRE. Here use keywords to describe the study setting along with keywords such as ETHNO? CASE STUD? entered in the second search box.
- WorldCat
- eLocation: "W" Databases Access: Available off campus with NKU login. Coverage: WorldCat is a very large database of books and other materials owned by libraries worldwide -- essentially an international online library catalog. Perform searches here similar to those you did in Steely's singular catalog, NKUIRE. When viewing records of potentially useful books, click on LIBRARIES THAT OWN to see if a local library owns the book. Whether a local library offers the book or not, you can always request that Steely Library obtain the book from another library for your use via the Interlibrary Loan service.
Journal Articles
Researchers publish their findings first in journals (both print and e-journals) and as conference papers. It is also in journals and conference panels that other researchers respond to the validity and importance of new studies. For these reasons, you will certainly want to consult indexes to journal articles in your literature review along with the catalogs of monograph sources. Moreover, some specific yet significant studies are of such narrow scope that a full length publication of a monographic report may not be justified.- Sociological Collection and Sociological Abstracts eLocation: "S"Databases Access: Available off campus with NKU login. Coverage: Indexing of articles from over 1600 scholarly journals is provided. Anthropology is one of the may social studies fields covered. (Sociological Collection provides full text of a smaller subset of these journals . . . nearly 600. Both databases can be searched simultaneously to find citations as well as any available full text.)
- Academic Search Premier
- eLocation: "A"Databases Access: Available off campus with NKU login. Coverage: Indexing of over 3000 scholarly periodicals, covering a wide range of academic fields. Full text of many of the indexed articles is available in the database
- Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection and PsycInfo
- eLocation: "P"Databases Access: Available off campus with NKU login. Coverage: Together these two databases index 1700 international journals, as well as books in psychology and related disciplines. (The smaller database, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, provides full text for more than 400 of the journals indexed. Both databases can be searched simultaneously.)
- America: History and Life
- eLocation: "A"Databases Access: Available off campus with NKU login Coverage: A comprehensive index to journal articles, books, book reviews and dissertations related to culture of the U.S. and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Many of these documents are ethnographic studies. Abstracts are provided.
Databases for related subject areas
Steely Library offers databases of indexed citations for each subject discipline. For example, ERIC is an excellent database for research in education, Business Source Premier presents scholarly articles on marketing, personnel, business culture, CINAHL is a strong databases of research set in the health care field. The professionals in each academic field often publish pieces of sociological/anthropological research that may be of use to you. To identify databases from other academic areas, consult the RESEARCH HELP guides BY TOPIC or consult with a Research and Instructional Services Librarian.Web Presented Studies
Web research can uncover a vast array of valuable studies and data. However, general keyword searches in broad-based search engines can be very time consuming. A more effective research strategy is to use Subject Directories and subject link meta-sites. By beginning your research at these special gateways into the web, you can benefit from some evaluative selections and groupings of web materials.- eLocation: AnthroNet
- Coverage: This site from the University of Virginia offers more than 250,000 reviewed sites related to the study of Anthropology.
- eLocation: Social Science Information Gateway
- Coverage: Scholarly collection of links to resources in the social sciences from Great Britain. This link takes you to the ethnology section of the guide.
- eLocation: AnthroTech
- Coverage: Based within a meta-site linking resources for the study of all areas of anthropology research, ethnography sites are categorized in the Cultural Anthropology directory.
- eLocation: Steely Library's Research Help guide to Research on the Web
- Coverage: In the section of this guide titled, "Subject Directories vs. Search Engines" you will find links to subject directories that search selected web pages. These particular subject directories employ expert selectors to build the collection of web pages that will be retrieved by your search.
Dissertations
Many ethnographies are published as PhD Dissertations. You can identify titles of useful dissertations through the indexes listed above in the section of this guide labeled "Journal Articles." Most advanced research databases include citations for relevant dissertations along with the journal articles. There is also an index which exclusively indexes dissertations.- Dissertations
- eLocation: "D"Databases Access: Restricted to Reference Area. See a librarian. Coverage: 1861 - present; over 1.5 million dissertations described. NOTE: Dissertations are very difficult to borrow. Often the only library owning a copy is part of the institution from which the PhD candidate received his/her degree. Your best chance of locating a copy of a dissertation is through an index to journal articles which also offers full text of many documents in that field (for example ERIC for dissertations in the field of education.) One of the Research and Instructional Services librarians can help you check any dissertation citation for availability in one of these specialized databases, availability at a local university library, or for a later monograph published by the author that is likely to incorporate the dissertation research.
updated on 10/30/03
