Reference Questions, Set One -- 4/8 (Revised 4/27)

1. What is the correct title (i.e., please verify) title of the pamphlet that Samuel Swett Green wrote for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia? Any library report holding it?
a. Analysis: This sounds like a rare item because it is a pamphlet published in the late 1800s; therefore, I assume that few libraries currently hold it.
b. Strategy: One place to look for items published before 1956 is the National Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints. Since the library at Fairfield University was about as likely to have the National Union Catalog as it was to have Green’s actual pamphlet, I crossed my fingers and decided to try Worldcat. (Not all items in the National Union Catalog are listed in Worldcat.) When I searched “Samuel Swett Green,” books written about him were the first search results; a sidebar offered ways to refine the search, so I clicked on “Year” and then on “1876.”
c. Answer: This pamphlet is titled “The Desirableness of Establishing Personal Intercourse and Relations between Librarians and Readers in Popular Libraries.” Eleven libraries report holding it: ten in the United States and one in England. The closest pamphlet to Southern Connecticut State University is located in the Columbia University Library in New York City.
d. Citation: Worldcat.org. 2010. 8 April 2010. http://www.worldcat.org/ title/desirableness-of-establishing-personal-intercourse-and-relations-between-librarians-and-readers-in-popular-libraries/oclc/29332343&referer=brief_results
i. http://www.worldcat.org/title/desirableness-of-establishing-personal-intercourse-and-relations-between-librarians-and-readers-in-popular-libraries-a-paper-read-at-the-conference-of-librarians-etc/oclc/560374620&referer=brief_results

2. How much are my old Baedekers worth? Which are the most valuable?
a. Analysis: First, I had to figure out what a Baedeker was. Aside from that, I thought a source that lists prices would be useful for this question –does a Kelly Blue Book equivalent for these “Baedeker” things exist somewhere?
b. Strategy: First, I Googled “Baedeker.” Baedekers are guidebooks published by a German company. They have been published since 1832. I chose Bdkr.com: A Reference for Collectors because collectors would be interested in the worth of their collections. This website did have prices for various Baedeker editions, but the prices were in Euros. Then I Googled “Euro conversion rates”; the first search result was Currency Calculator (www.x-rates.com/calculator.html). According to this website, 1 Euro is worth 1.33 U.S. dollars.
c. Answer: Editions published between 1832 and 1943 have collection value. The older the book is, the more it is worth – depending on condition. (More details can be found by clicking on the “Collecting” sidebar.) This website allows users to search for specific editions (using the “Editions” sidebar) and see the values. For instance, an 1840 edition of a guidebook to Germany in very good condition is worth almost $3400 (2500 Euros), while a 1926 edition in the same condition is worth about $41 (30 Euros). However, it is important to note that geographical area is also a pricing factor. The more “exotic” the locale, the more the book is worth – the 1929 Egypt guidebook is worth $270 (200 Euros), more than six times the price of the 1926 Germany guidebook.
d. Citation: Bdkr.com. 2008. 8 April 2010. http://www.bdkr.com.
i. There is a print guide on the worth of antique Baedekers called Baedeker’s Reisehandbucher 1832-1944, written by Alex W. Hinrichsen and published in 1981. Also, another version by the same author covers antique and newer Baedekers. However, as both of these books are written in German and held by few libraries (the closest one to me was at the Columbia University Library), it was not viable for me to use this print source. Also, these books are thirty and twenty years old respectively, so they may not contain the most up-to-date pricing.

3. What happens to valedictorians after high school; do they continue to perform as well?
a. Analysis: This question might be addressed by a journal article. Therefore, I need a print periodicals index or an electronic database of scholarly journals.
b. Strategy: Honestly, I didn’t know what kind of publication would address this topic until reading the example sent out last week, where the student wrote that he/she would look for scholarly articles. With this knowledge and the advice that a periodical index and a citation index are two different things, I accessed Academic Search Premier via the Buley Library homepage. Then I searched for “valedictorians after high school,” which did not yield relevant results. My next search for “valedictorians” had better results.
c. Answer: The article “Undergraduate aspirations and career outcomes of academically talented young women: A discriminant analysis” discusses women who participated in the Valedictorian Project, a longitudinal study that followed high school valedictorians educational and career outcomes for ten years after graduation.
d. Citation: Arnold, K. (1993). “Undergraduate aspirations and career outcomes of academically talented women: A discriminant..” Roeper Review, 15(3), 169. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

4. Please help me verify the following: Holland, Maurita Peterson, "Real-time Searching at the Reference Desk," The Reference Librarian 5/6 (1992): 165-71.
a. Analysis: Based on the citation, this appeared to be an article in a scholarly journal. I could use a print periodicals index or an online database to verify the citation.
b. Strategy: I used a similar strategy to what I did for Question 3 – again, based on classmates’ examples and Dr. Okobi’s advice.
c. Answer: The correct citation for this article is Holland, Maurita Peterson. “Real-time Searching at the Reference Desk.” The Reference Librarian. Vol. 2, Issue 5. 1982: 165 – 171. The full text article is available in PDF format for $30 at Informaworld.com.
d. Citation: Informaworld.com. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. 2010. 9 April 2010. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/quicksearch~db=all?quickterm =Maurita+Peterson+Holland&x=0&y=0&searchtype=author

5. I need to define operationally the concept "quality of graduate education"; is there a literature on this topic, and if so, where?
a. Analysis: This topic could be addressed in a college handbook. Also, there could be “regular” books on the topic. Also, it sounds like this query is for sources rather than for a direct answer from the librarian.
b. Strategy: First I looked at a print copy of College Handbook 2010; this had some general, brief information on the topic. For a more specific source, I conducted a keyword search in the library’s online public access catalog (OPAC). I also Googled “quality graduate education” to see what resources were online.
c. Answer: The College Board’s College Handbook 2010 has a short section of general evaluation criteria for higher education institutions. For a more in-depth analysis, consider Getting What You Came for: the Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or PhD by Robert Peters. This book, published in 1997, has several chapters on evaluating programs.
i. One helpful web resource for evaluating graduate programs is GradSchools.com.
ii. Depending on one’s field of study, evaluations of graduate programs in specific majors may be available. For instance, prospective business students can consult Finding the Best Business School for You: Looking Past the Rankings by Everette E. Dennis and Sharon P. Smith.
iii. Once evaluation criteria are established, a prospective student may want a handbook of graduate schools. One such resource is Peterson’s Graduate Schools in the U.S. 2010.
d. Citation: Peters, Robert. Getting What You Came for: the Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or a PhD. Revised Edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
i. College Handbook 2010. 47th ed. New York: College Board, 2009.
ii. GradSchools.com. 2010. 8 April 2010. http://www.gradschools.com
iii. Dennis, Everette E. and Sharon P. Smith. Finding the Best Business School for You: Looking Past the Rankings. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006.
iv. Graduate Schools in the U.S. 2010. Lawrenceville, NJ: Peterson’s, 2009.

6. Can you find me an annotated list of scholarly articles on whether murders (i.e., homicides) more likely to be committed during a full moon?
a. Analysis: I didn’t know where to start, especially with a print resource. It should have occurred to me to conduct a keyword search in EBSCOhost, but I was too focused on the idea of finding something in print.
b. Strategy: I went to Ohio’s live online reference service, Chat.KnowItNow.Org, Googled an Ohio zip code so I could log in, and asked the question to a reference librarian via live chat. He/she took about thirty seconds find a link to website with a list of references. I weeded items that didn’t look “scholarly,” and items that were not articles. Also, I formatted some of the citations and added the annotations (or rather, quoted the abstracts) for Thakur and Thompson’s articles.
c. Answer: Abell, George. "The Alleged Lunar Effect" in Science Confronts the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1986). Abel provides a very critical review of psychiatrist Arnold L. Lieber's The Lunar Effect: Biological Tides and Human Emotions.

Abell, George O. "The moon and the birthrate," Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1979, vol. 3, no. 4.

Bickis, M., Kelly, I.W., & Byrnes, G. “Crisis calls and temporal and lunar variables: A comprehensive examination.” The Journal of Psychology, 129, 1995: 701-711.

Campbell, David E. and John L. Beets Lunacy and the moon. Psychological Bulletin, Volume 85, Issue 5, September 1978, Pages 1123-1129. It is concluded that lunar phase is not related to human behavior and that the few positive findings are examples of a Type I error, i.e., seeing patterns where there aren't any.

Byrnes, Gail and I. W. Kelly. "Crisis Calls and Lunar Cycles: A Twenty-Year Review," Psychological Reports, 1992, 71, 779-785.

Gutiérrez-García, J. M. and F. Tusell. "Suicides and the Lunar Cycle," Psychological Reports, 1997, 80, 243-250.

Kelly, I. W., W. H. Laverty, and D. H. Saklofske. "Geophysical variables and behavior: LXIV. An empirical investigation of the relationship between worldwide automobile traffic disasters and lunar cycles: No Relationship," Psychological Reports, 1990, 67, 987-994.

Kelly, I. W. and R. Martens. 1994. "Lunar phase and birthrate: An update," Psychological Reports, 75, 507-511.

Kelly, I. W., James Rotton, and Roger Culver. "The Moon was Full and Nothing Happened: A Review of Studies on the Moon and Human Behavior and Human Belief," in J. Nickell, B. Karr and T. Genoni, eds., The Outer Edge (Amherst, N.Y.: CSICOP, 1996). This is an updated version of an article which originally appeared in the Skeptical Inquirer Winter 1985-86 (vol. 10, no. 2) and was reprinted in The Hundredth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991), pp. 222-234.

Martens R., I. W. Kelly, and D. H. Saklofske. 1998. "Lunar phase and birth rate: A fifty- year critical review," Psychological Reports, 63, 923-934.

Martin, S.J., I. W. Kelly and D. H. Saklofske. "Suicide and Lunar Cycles: A Critical Review over 28 Years," Psychological Reports, 1992, 71, 787-795.

Rotton, James and I. W. Kelly Much Ado About the Full Moon: A Meta-Analysis of Lunar-Lunacy Research Psychological Bulletin, Volume 97, Issue 2, March 1985, Pages 286-306. (Alleged relations between phases of the moon and behavior can be traced to inappropriate analyses, a failure to take other (e.g., weekly) cycles into account, and a willingness to accept any departure from chance as evidence for a lunar effect.)

*Thakur, C.P. and D. Sharma. “Full Moon and Crime.” Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1984 December 22; 289(6460): 1789–1791. From the abstract: “The incidence of crimes reported to three police stations in different towns (one rural, one urban, one industrial) was studied to see if it varied with the day of the lunar cycle. The period of the study covered 1978-82.”

Thompson, David A. and Stephen L. Adams. “The full moon and ED patient volumes: Unearthing a myth.” The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Volume 14, Issue 2. March 1996:161-164. From the abstract: “To determine if there is any effect of the full moon on emergency department (ED) patient volume, ambulance runs, admissions, or admissions to a monitored unit, a retrospective analysis of the hospital electronic records of all patients seen in an ED during a 4-year period was conducted in an ED of a suburban community hospital.”

d. Citation: Most of this list is taken directly from the website The Skeptic’s Dictionary, maintained by Robert T. Carroll and last updated in 2009. http://www.skepdic.com/fullmoon.html. The asterisked item is from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1444800/?tool=pmcentrez.

7. Is there a book written about U.S. first ladies?
a. Analysis: This query is looking for a book on a certain topic. I can use a source like Books in Print, or I can conduct a subject search in my library’s OPAC.
b. Strategy: I searched the OPAC and found several biography titles.
c. Answer: American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy, published in 2001, is one comprehensive source for first ladies up to Hillary Clinton. Another source is The Presidents, First Ladies, and Vice Presidents: White House Biographies, 1789-2005. For research on Michelle Obama, or in-depth research on another first lady, I could use the OPAC to find more resources.
d. Citation: American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy. L. Gould, ed. New York: Routledge, 2001.
i. Diller, Daniel C. and Stephen L. Robinson. The Presidents, First Ladies, and Vice Presidents: White House Biographies, 1789-2005. Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2005.

8. Where can one find the name of the publisher and cost of the book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming?
a. Analysis: This question can be answered by Books in Print. Since I do not have access to that source in print, I looked for an electronic version of it or something similar.
b. Strategy: I accessed Book Index with Reviews via the Buley Library webpage and searched for “chitty-chitty-bang-bang.”
c. Answer: A hardcover version is available from Buccaneer Books for $27.95.
d. Citation: Fleming, I., & Burningham, J. (1996). Chitty Chitty Bang Bang : the magical car. Buccaneer Books. Retrieved from Book Index with Reviews database.

9. Locate the titles of some dictionaries dealing with cookery.
a. Analysis: This query could be answered using Books in Print, or through an online search.
b. Strategy: I found the electronic version of Books in Print on the Buley database page and conducted a keyword search for “cooking dictionary.”
c. Answer: One well-reviewed title is A Culinary Dictionary: The Chef’s Companion. Another title is The Prentice Hall Pocket Dictionary of Culinary Arts, which is intended for students and professionals in the culinary field.
d. Citation: Riely, Elizabeth. A Culinary Dictionary: The Chef’s Companion. United States: John Wiley and Sons, 2007.
i. Labensky, Sarah, et al. The Prentice Hall Pocket Dictionary of Culinary Arts. United States: Prentice Hall PTR, 2007.

10. Where can one find a list of books on communism in the US for which LC cards were issued last year?
a. Analysis: This seems like another query for Books in Print. However, I’m not sure if Books in Print search results qualify as a list.
b. Strategy: I accessed Books in Print via the Buley database page. Then I conducted an advanced search using “communism” and “United States” as subject keywords and setting date parameters of 2008-2009. (When I set the parameters to 2009-2010, the list included forthcoming books. There was no option for setting month parameters.) Also, I couldn’t figure out how to make sure the books had LC cards.
c. Answer: Two titles from the search results include The Communist Experience in America: A Political and Social History and Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe Mccarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. The entire list had eighty-two results.
d. Citation: Klehr, Harvey. The Communist Experience in America: A Political and Social History. United States: Transaction Publishers, 2009.
i. Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe Mccarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. United States: Crown Publications, 2009.

11. How will you locate a library in the U.S. which has a special collection on Beethoven and where is it?
a. Analysis: This is a perfect question for the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers.
b. Strategy: I looked in the subject index of the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers and found entries for Beethoven.
c. Answer: The closest special music collection to Southern Connecticut State University is the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It holds over half a million items in various formats, including sound recordings, books, and periodicals. The address is 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY, 10023-7498.
d. Citation: Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers. Christine Maurer, ed. 20th edition. Volume 1. Gale: Detroit, 1997.

12. Find a book about Japanese theater and Drama.
a. Analysis: This is another query for the Books in Print online database.
b. Strategy: I searched for “Japanese theater” in the Books in Print database.
c. Answer: One title on Japanese theater is Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater.
d. Citation: Miller, J. Scott. Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. E-book. United States: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

13. How much does Gone with the Wind cost in paperback?
a. Analysis: This query can be answered by Books in Print.
b. Strategy: I did a quick search for “gone with the wind” in the Books in Print online database.
c. Answer: A paperback version of Gone with the Wind published by Simon and Schuster is available for $8.99.
d. Citation: Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. United States: Simon and Schuster. Reprint 2008.

14. What are some good college level books in the field of plant physiology?
a. This query can be answered with Book Index with Reviews.
b. Strategy: I entered the key words “plant physiology” and set the following search parameters using Book Index with Review’s advanced search option: in print publication status, four star reviews, and adult intended audience. This found mostly textbooks on human physiology and general books about gardening. I expanded the search to include books with any rating and found that the “best” books had only two stars.
c. Answer: One recent textbook title in plant physiology includes Plant Physiology by Taiz and Zeiger. It was rated as “two stars.” Another textbook, also rated as “two stars” is Aquatic Photosynthesis by Falkowski and Raven.
d. Citation: Taiz, L., & Zeiger, E. (2006). Plant physiology. Sinauer Associates. Retrieved from Book Index with Reviews database.
i. Falkowski, P., & Raven, J. (2007). Aquatic photosynthesis. Princeton University Press. Retrieved from Book Index with Reviews database.