Books, articles and resources beyond Vassar: 

• Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
  • Books, articles, film, dissertations and other resources not available at Vassar. ILLiad is our ILL platform.
• WorldCat
  • The "world's catalog"; a great resource for locating books.
• Purchase Request Form
  • Please complete for books/ebooks, films and more, especially if you plan to heavily rely on the item and would like to borrow the resource for a longer period of time.
• NY Library catalogs
  • Every college student in NY, regardless of your home state, can apply for a New York Public Library (NYPL) card. This allows you to access NYPL online resources and request to view items in person.
• SHARES
  • Consortium of libraries to provide expedited ILL, special collections access, and easy in-person use of member collections. 
• Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
  • A large research collection that includes an international newspaper archive.
• HathiTrust
  • A great and free online repository for older materials, especially those within the public domain. 
• Internet Archive
  • A surprisingly good source for ebooks from the 1950's-early 2000's, radio shows/podcasts and other miscellaneous resources. Access may require free account creation. 
• ArchiveGrid
  • Directory of archival collections from libraries, museums, historical societies and other institutions that hold cultural heritage material. The bulk of the material is from the United States, but material from Canada, Australia, parts of Europe, and elsewhere is also included.
• Other institutional repositories (may be retrieved in Google Scholar)
  • Like Vassar's Digital Library, you may find resources housed in college and university institutional repositories that contain the scholarly output/publications of that community. 

You will likely go through the search process a number of times, performing different searches with different keyword combinations, to address the different components of your literature review. 

Literature Synthesis Grids

Synthesis grids are organizational tools for recording the main concepts of your sources and can help with connecting your sources to one another.

• Synthesis Grid Templates & Search Log: This template provides four different organizational frameworks for keeping track of your sources. Select the grid that most closely meets your needs; add or delete columns as you wish. Download or create your own copy to begin using.

Catalogue & Database Accounts

Vassar Library Search and many of our databases platforms (Ebsco, ProQuest, etc.) allow users to create free accounts where you can save searches and items from results lists. 

Zotero Citation Manager

Zotero is a free easy-to-use citation management tool to help you collect, store, organize, cite, and share your research sources. Zotero can format in-text citations and generate references lists using your preferred citation style. 

More information about citing and style guides on the Citing & Managing Sources. 

Trello

Trello is a free project management software. You can use it for setting deadlines, keeping track of tasks and more. See Organizing the research process using Trello to get started. There are free and paid versions; I use the free version almost daily. 

Google Keep

Somewhat similar to Trello, Google Keep is best used for visualizing tasks and creating checklists. 

Searching, Reading, Annotating & Writing with BEAM

As you search and review sources, consider the sources potential use beyond relevancy: Background, Evidence, Argument, Methods. BEAM framework is from Bizup- for more see The Craft of Research. 

Google Tips: 

Use Google domain searching

Search in another country's Google; see CIA Worldfact book for domains

Use Google Scholar Language options and Advanced Search (found in the collapsed menu on the top right) 

More Tips:

1. Don't try to keep it all in your head.
   1. Diagram your tentative topic/ research question (Kristin Luker's Bedraggled Daisy) 
   2. Document your research process; consider using a synthesis grid or a research log/journal to plan out your current tasks and next steps.
   3. Annotate your references documents. If possible, work this into your search process and note why the source is relevant and how you might use it, as you save them. If using Zotero, you can use its built-in annotation tools. 
2. When saving sources, look for permalinks or DOIs
3. Create accounts with the database platforms you are using regularly to save searches and results.
4. Use a citation manager. Zotero is a great and free option. 

• Oral History Best Practices from the Oral History Association hosted by Baylor University
• Interviewing Guidelines from the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research
• Mac Whisper Audio to Text tool
• Audio Resources on Campus: Fall 2024 (direct questions to Baynard Baily)
• EAO Assistive Tech Tools; convert various formats to text