historic language and historic newspapers: strategies for breaking the language barrier christopher...
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Historic Language and Historic Newspapers: Strategies for Breaking the Language Barrier
Christopher Cronin, University of Colorado at BoulderMartha Hanscom, University of WyomingNancy Chaffin, Colorado State University
Colorado Association of Libraries ConferenceNovember 11, 2005
Collaborative Digitization Programwww.cdpheritage.org
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Agenda
Introduction to the collection Issues around using historical newspapers General search strategies Keyword searching Stop List Searching broad and narrow topics
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Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection http://www.cdpheritage.org/collection/chnc.cfm Collaborative project between the CDP,
Colorado State Library, and Colorado Historical Society Library Services & Technology Act
(LSTA)/Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to digitize the microfilm of Colorado newspapers
Started with 48 newspapers from 1859-1880, but grew to 85 newspapers though the year 1923
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Using Historic Newspapers
Technological: Optical Character Recognition (OCR)Accuracy is dependent on the quality of the
microfilm, and quality of the original when it was microfilmed
Cultural: changes in publishing practices, journalistic practice, and language usage.
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Differences in Journalistic Practice
Shorter articles Mixture of fact and opinion Variant language usage: from obsolete and archaic to
derogatory and offensive Additional resources:
Newspapers by Anne Rubenstein, on the Center for History and New Media web site (George Mason University). Available: http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/unpacking/newsmain.html
Uncovering our history: teaching with primary sources by Susan H. Veccia (American Library Association, 2004)
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General Search Strategies – 1
Broad topics: if you’re interested in transportation, search for specific modes of transportRailroads, stage coach, horses, wagons,
automobiles Even more specific: names of transportation
companies like Union Pacific, or Ford and Buick
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General Search Strategies – 2
Limit searches for common terms to specific dates or newspapers
Be creative when searching for geographic areas
Broaden and narrow searches appropriately based on results: if a newspaper doesn’t list “Ford”, search under “cars” or automobiles”
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Keyword Searching
See pages 3-5 of the Searching Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection handout Connectors: and, or, not Phrase: quotation marks (plus connectors if needed) Only case-sensitive when an initial capital is used Truncation/wildcard: asterisk (*) Punctuation: do not use apostrophes (’) Spelling: be aware of alternate spellings Abbreviations: be aware of different practices in abbreviations
(e.g., Wm. for William)
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Stop List
Do not search with common words: a, an, at, the
Words that are too common will generate an error message:
“The following errors occurred: The query string is empty. The following words are very common and were not included in your search: [term]”
Use asterisks creatively: “Gre* War”
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Searching for a broad topic – Immigration
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Strategy
Choose a topic Read secondary sources Use a thesaurus to find words to search
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Strategy
Break up topic into smaller elements Search one aspect
Examples: Education or language Limit search by date range or geographic
area
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Strategy
Use wild cards (*)*migration or immigra*
Combine terms Immigrants and literate
Try alternate spellingsTheater or theatre
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Strategy
Test the search strategy See what results you get Get ideas for other search termsRefine the search
Try the search again
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Searching Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection
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Examples of search results
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Colorado’s Historic Newspapers Collection:
Germans from Russia:
Searching for a specific immigrant group
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Searching strategies: Background information Dates
CHNC: 1859-1923 Germans from Russia: 1885-1924
Terminology Volga Germans Russians Black Sea Germans
Specific locations Globeville Larimer, Weld, Morgan, Logan Counties (South Platte watershed) Pueblo
Source: Rock, Kenneth W., “Unsere Leute:” The Germans from Russia in Colorado. Colorado History Magazine, v. 54, no. 2 (1977) pp 154-183.
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Questions?
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Conclusion
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