Lesson 5: Proquest

This search was very helpful since we are about to embark on our literary research in a few weeks. I must admit I don't use all of the limiters other than a few basic things. This particular search on Les Miserables took me a little trial and error. I started by just typing in Les Meserables and then trying out some of the limiters, but I found that I still had a ton of results with many still coming up with the Broadway play or musical. So I then typed in "Les Meserables novel" and that helped quite a lot. I still excluded many of the same things such as television show, movies, etc. and I also simply selected the tab for literary criticism which narrowed it down to about 117 articles and just looked at those. Anyway it helped to be able to eliminate those articles. I will definitely use this a lot in the coming weeks.


For the second question, I searched for "Hurricane Sandy" AND librar* and retrieved 480 results. I sorted the search by most recent date which were February 2014. I looked through a few of those and then I chose the subject limiters and included storm damage and chose reports for a source type.

I found articles that included how libraries and information centers are used as responses to extreme weather. Below is an excerpt:
The model pian, a one-page Library Service Continuity Plan, was adapted from the Councii of State Archivists' Pocket Response Plan (PReP) to be specific to libraries and information centers. The plan îs a template that contains space for everything a library needs to respond to a disaster. Libraries that complete 1he plan possess a very valuable response tool.

Another article discussed how thousands of books had to be discovered that were wet or moldy and it was cheaper to replace than try to preserve. With rarer books, money was needed to decontaminate them. Some libraries lost 80% of their collection. The insurance money could not even replace many of the books. Authors like Walter Dean Myers were making donations toward replacing books.

Another article mentioned how libraries were used as shelters in areas. And one where urban librarians were creating mini libraries:
Urban Librarians Unite (ULU) collected more than 20,000 children's books to help replace library collections damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The library advocacy and support group, founded by 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker Christian Zabriskie, also placed Mini Libraries in front of libraries that were closed by storm damage in Queens and Brooklyn.

I was interested in this topic as I had visited NYC shortly after Sandy and saw some of the devastation.