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
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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
