Adventures with Primary Sources
Oct. 4th, 2012 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryToday I'm exploring the world of finding sources for my paper online. I'm writing about the Central Valley Project -- a series of dams and canals built in the New Deal era. So I'm looking for sources from the 30's and 40's. I need to go talk to a reference librarian and figure out the best way to look at newspapers, and government publications.
I spent time this morning playing with JSTOR. So far I have mostly found things I wasn't looking for, but have found interesting things. I this morning I found The Condor, a publication of the Cooper Ornithological Society. This journal is still published today, but I was looking at old issues. Just looking at the table of contents of this the issues form the 30's was fun. I couldn't find a direct reference to The central valley project, but the debates about conservation and pesticides are fascinating. Each journal contains the minutes of the societies meetings where the list all the interesting birds sited by the members of the society. This journal would be great for any one who wanted to do historical ecology of California.
(American Historical ecologist tend to stick to pre-European settlement ecologies, but there is no reason they have to.)
Also I now have pdf of a dissertation I've been meaning to track down. It's is not a primary source. But I am still happy to have it. Many of my secondary sources have referenced this dissertation so I knew I needed. However I thought it would take some work to track down. So I'm quite pleased that I found it this morning while looking for something else.
I spent time this morning playing with JSTOR. So far I have mostly found things I wasn't looking for, but have found interesting things. I this morning I found The Condor, a publication of the Cooper Ornithological Society. This journal is still published today, but I was looking at old issues. Just looking at the table of contents of this the issues form the 30's was fun. I couldn't find a direct reference to The central valley project, but the debates about conservation and pesticides are fascinating. Each journal contains the minutes of the societies meetings where the list all the interesting birds sited by the members of the society. This journal would be great for any one who wanted to do historical ecology of California.
(American Historical ecologist tend to stick to pre-European settlement ecologies, but there is no reason they have to.)
Also I now have pdf of a dissertation I've been meaning to track down. It's is not a primary source. But I am still happy to have it. Many of my secondary sources have referenced this dissertation so I knew I needed. However I thought it would take some work to track down. So I'm quite pleased that I found it this morning while looking for something else.
