Old Dog, New Tricks
Out-Of-Print Reference Books Can Be Your Best Friends
I had a Digger the Dog. Not a surprise, since I’ve always loved digging for facts and secrets of all stripes.
Author Mara Miller must have had a Digger too. A few weeks ago, I ordered her book Where to Go for What, which was published in 1981.
I don’t remember where I heard about the book. As is the case with most of my online hunts, I usually get sidetracked by something Oooh! and/or Shiny! and ten minutes later I have 17 tabs open with no idea where I started out.
Research is ages-old. Though the vehicles change, I suspected that the methods haven’t. I bought the book because I wanted to see what Miller recommended back then and if her advice would still hold true today. She started from scratch, assuming her reader knew nothing.
“The idea for writing this book originated in a Basic Research Skills course I taught at the Womanschool in New York City,” she wrote in the Preface.
The mention of Womanschool caused a couple of brain synapses to fire. I lived in New York for most of the 1980s and community schools and adult-learning programs like The Learning Annex were just gaining traction back then. Though some of these programs were thinly-veiled dating services, others promised to teach real skills.
I think I even taught one – on what? Writing? Or how to do publicity? – but alas, this time my synapses failed to spark. Of course, I could research it, but a] I need to upload this post sometime this year, and b] I’d end up with 18 more tabs open, Firefox would crash and burn like it usually does, and I’d lose everything.
As I Evelyn Wooded my way through the book, I circled pertinent passages – yes, I’m one of those and totally unapologetic about it – and dog-eared pages, the equivalent of a website tab, with absolutely no worry it will crash and burn.
Miller’s book served as a reminder that the world is vaster than you know when it comes to research, and that the out-of-reach facts you’re searching for may just be in – to paraphrase the motto of one of my favorite used bookstores, The Montague Bookmill in Montague, Massachusetts – a book you’ve never heard of in a place you’ve never looked.
Here are some random observations from the book that will help me in the future. Some of them will probably help you, too.
“‘I couldn’t think of the right place to go’ is an excuse for an unwillingness to play [emphasis mine] at getting information.”
I’ve never thought of doing research as play, but of course it is. Some days it’s drudgery, especially when the very thing you’re looking for remains tantalizingly out of reach, but when I can envision my own searches as a series of pirouettes, dips, and twirls, from one site to the next, all unchoreographed and improvised, it helps.
Miller lays out a series of rules in the introduction:
“You need to know the reason [why you want the information] in order to get the best information.”
“Always assume that the perfect answer exists.”
“Risk making a fool of yourself and risk being wrong.”
Of course, there are numerous stumbles down memory lane in the book. “Telephone books are the most used and most helpful tools in existence,” she writes on page 20. Today, I’d say that sites like Email Hunter and RocketReach are of that caliber, though of course many people never check their email, a modern-day problem that wasn’t even in science fiction forty years ago.
On page 77, when she explained how to use a card catalog, I actually misted up. I loved card catalogs before they were obliterated by Al Gore’s internet asteroid. The tactile nature of flipping through cards, the Yahtzee pencils and squares of scrap paper perched atop the veiny oak cabinets for a real-life treasure hunt before you track your prey down trails of cracked peeling linoleum, patches still wet from the janitor’s mop and astringent particles of disinfectant tickling your nose hair, fluorescent lights buzzing as loud as the rhino-sized bugs in the Amazon, finally you pluck your dust-covered prize from the shelf and YOU GET TO TAKE HOME AN ACTUAL TROPHY!
It’s hard not to swoon.
The particular richness of Where to Go for What is that it provides a slew of reference books that were once go-tos for nimble-fingered reference librarians, but most of which are now offered online.
I’ve always believed that the greatest value of these reference works is in revealing the sheer number of organizations that cater to a particular group or interest. They are workhorses that can also help you narrow your search.
For example, the Encyclopedia of Associations is a mainstay, as is The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and the myriad subdivisions of Who’s Who. Miller’s book says that the Research Centers Directory contains “over 5000 university related and other nonprofit research programs,” but the listing for today’s guide cites over 17,000. Honestly, it’s been awhile since I’ve paged through books in the reference room so I’ve forgotten about most of them. But now that my memory has been jiggered, they offer new venues to search.
Many of these reference works are available through university and larger public libraries and are updated online on a rolling basis, instead of once every year or two as in Miller’s day. If they’re not listed in your public library’s online catalog, then your library may subscribe for their own purposes.
But perhaps the gold mine will be the Directory of Special Libraries, which lists libraries that few people know even exist. [Also check The American Library Directory.] Who knew there are oodles of highly specific libraries – sometimes located in museums, clubs, businesses, and even private homes? Miller lists the library at the Cigar Association of America and the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Library, which has since moved to Columbus, Ohio.
For instance, in my ongoing search for a particular issue of Gifted Children Newsletter, WorldCat had listed the The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, as having the newsletter in their library. I emailed the library to see what they had in their collection and the librarian responded within a day, saying they only had one issue.
So the search continues, but that would have been a great excuse to head to Rochester and spend an afternoon just poking around the shelves!
Though it’s over 40 years old, Miller’s book is crammed full of advice and sources to enhance your search. On page 60, my favorite: NEVER HANG UP WITHOUT ASKING FOR THE NAME OF ANOTHER SOURCE. [all-caps hers]
“Can you recommend anyone else I should speak to?” [no-caps mine] was always my last question when interviewing people for my biographies. Most people could usually scrounge up a few more names, and even if someone didn’t want to talk to me, I could do a bit of research about the person which would then deepen my understanding of my subject just a little.
Today, in our phone-averse stranger-danger days, you can always tack this question onto the end of an email interview or even in an introductory email.
Honestly, I am only skimming the surface of Miller’s book. Other potential goldmines she mentions include ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global [formerly Dissertation Abstracts International], the World Bibliography of Bibliographies [!] and Oral History in the United States, which back then listed “oral history collections at over 200 institutions.”
I could go on. But the lesson here is that it’s often the old dogs who know the best tricks.
Just like Digger.
The Takeaway: Out-of-print reference books can be your best friends, happily leading you far astray. And I’ll repeat the following because you simply can’t beat this advice when it comes to research of any kind:
“You need to know the reason [why you want the information] in order to get the best information.”
“Always assume that the perfect answer exists.”
“Risk making a fool of yourself and risk being wrong.”
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Lisa, thanks for this. Lots of info and it made me smile. I thought I'd discovered the secrets of the universe when I was fourteen and I learned how to use the card catalogues and then find the books I wanted in the stacks of the UBC library.
I loved the card catalog too! Finding the book brought a warm sense of satisfaction. I need to remember the "Never hang up without asking for the name of another source" advice. Excellent!