Rare Book Monthly
The Collaborative Project:Building An Anti-Slavery Book Collection Focusing On Women
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I should say a bit more about searching methodology before I get to the meat of my essay: my results so far. After each search I conducted, I went through each and every record and looked for an author name or for any other name mentioned in the comments field of the record. As I completed each and every search, I took the time to type these names, in alphabetical order (so that I could later check searches and results easily against them), into a Proper Names to Search For List. Thus far there are approximately 65 names on this proper names list. (And this list, like my “wants” list in general, is growing: each time I get a “match” or record I add at least one name to my proper names list, and often I add more than one.) I have executed searches on only a fraction of these proper names, leaving the vast majority still to do. But each time I have searched for one of these proper names – again, I’ll remind readers of another crucial methodological hint here: always search for proper names last name first in the AED! -- I have come up with interesting and fruitful results, and with records that were not duplicated in my other searches.
The final thing I’d like to say about my searching methodology is that it has become more refined as I progress with this project. I’m not going to reveal all of my Keyword and other searches, but I will say that I am now able to go in and execute searches like –“-female anti slavery As Keyword Search –DONE, yielded 19 hits (& Note Authors, to Look Up Later).” This is a far cry from where I started. I have learned how to recognize and use common phrases in my records or “matches" to create and execute other, more precise searches. The more I learn about my subject, the more precise my searches become and the more I learn about and feel comfortable with the AE Database. And the more my “wants” list grows, the more my list of “to dos” – searches that I note to myself that I should execute in the near future – grows with it.
So what has been my progress so far on TCP? As of this writing (end of March, 2003), my list of “wants” or “matches” totals approximately 164 records. (I’ll explain the reason for the use of the term “approximately” later in this essay.) I have so far executed approximately 12 Keyword phrase searches and only 4 or so proper name searches. The Microsoft word document containing all AED records for each “match” in my “wants” list document, as well as the alphabetized proper names list and the complete notes written to me by me about what’s been done as well as what next steps I should take, is about 175 pages long. I imagine it will be at least double that by this time next month!
But I have a lot more still to do! First, I have a certain amount of weeding to do (here is where the term “approximately” comes in): I have to go through all of my “matches” or “wants” records and remove duplicate entries, as well as the stray pro-slavery text or text not written by or addressed to women that may have slipped accidentally onto my list. (I don’t suspect that I have many duplications on my list, but I need to check in order to be thorough; the same goes for the entries that don’t conform to my initial “wants” list requirements: all male-only and/or pro-slavery records must be excised, even if there are only a few of them.)
