Library Research Guided Exercise Part III: Search Strategies

Before proceeding:
  1. Please read this information on Authors/Context then,
  2. Click here to open a second web session set at the library home page.
Our subject for this exercise will be the "Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams" in Washington State which were identified for removal by the "Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act of October 1992 (Public Law 102-495)." A short narrative, "Elwha River: running an obstacle course from mountains to sea" at http://www.nps.gov/olym/issues/isselwha2.htm, written by Janet Scharf in 1998, provides a bit of background on the topic if you are interested. Briefly:
    "The Elwha River is the largest watershed within Olympic National Park and home to all five species of Pacific salmon, as well as other fish species. Prior to the construction of two hydroelectric dams in the early 1900s, the Elwha was one of the most productive salmon streams in the Pacific Northwest. Along with the City of Port Angeles, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Reclamation, Olympic National Park is working to finalize design for a new water treatment plant, slated to be built next year. Dam removal is scheduled to begin in 2008, after the treatment plant has been completed."
    --USDI National Park Service Web site (http://www.nps.gov/parkoftheweek/olym.htm visited: 12/5/07)
  1. The first step to any searching task is to identify questions to be answered.   In this case questions could be any of the following:
    1. What is the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act of October 1992?
    2. Who were the interested parties; what were the stakes involved with passing this Act?
    3. How have the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams affected the Elwha River Watershed?
    4. What is/are the actual plan(s) for removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams?
    5. What has happened since this legislation was passed ... why are the dams still there?
    6. How will the process of removing the dams affect the people living in the Olympic peninsula?
    7. Etc., etc.
  2. Let's take question #V: What has happened since this legislation was passed...why are the dams still there?   First, consider what you/we know:
    1. Are you familiar with this issue? _______________________________ if so, how did you learn about it?
    2. Though we may need to investigate earlier information, what seems like the logical period of time we are interested in? ______________________
    3. How important would you expect newspapers to be in this search? ___ (1=not important to 5=very important)
    4. Why does it help to know where these dams and the Elwha river are located (i.e. that they are in a National Park, etc.)?__________________________________________________________
    5. Might the "politics" related to the removal of one of the dam be different from that of the other?_________
    6. Has enough time passed for books to have been written on this topic?_________________
    7. What do you know about the actual process of removing a dam? _________
    8. Would this require an environmental impact statement (EIS)? __________
    9. Could the technology associated with the task of removal itself explain part of the time lag? ________________
  3. As you have seen in our earlier exercises, most database searching (including general web searching) involves dealing with computer software in which search terms are taken VERY LITERALLY.   So spend some time with the words you plan to use in your search.
    1. What are the main concepts in the question: "Why are these dams (the Elwha and Glines Canyon) still there?"
      • Concept A: dams (specifically Elwha Dam OR Glines Canyon Dam)
      • Concept B: [dam] removal technologies and issues

    2. When we search, we are looking for the shaded (blue) area, the intersection of these two concepts.
    3. Of these two concepts, the most specific or least ambiguous terms are probably those of concept A, so we might start just searching those terms.
    4. We may find that in searching on concept A alone there are so few references we can just scan them and see which related to the concept B. Or, we may also find that while there are many articles written, all of them relate directly to their removal (Concept B).
    5. While it is essential to ask yourself the "what do I know" questions in advance of searching, the cardinal rules for searching in a new database are:
      • START SIMPLE!
      • Don't give up!  
      • Evaluate as you go! and
      • Pay attention to terminology!
      So the next thing you want to do is consider your terms carefully.
    6. Are there synonyms for the concept dam removal? If so, what are some of these:____________________________________
    7. Are there synonyms for the Elwha or Glines Canyon Dams? _______________________
    8. Are there [related] terms for these two dams which might be used in conjunction with the "dam removal" terms? ______________
    9. Are there words we could "truncate" using a wildcard ("*") without losing meaning? (e.g. the only problem with using "dam*" for "dam or dams" is that it will also pick up "damage, damages, damp", etc.) __________________________________________________________________
  4. As a preliminary search, try using EbscoHost's Newspaper Source. Use search strategy below. 
    (Elwha or Glines Canyon) in Default Fields
AND
(dam or dams) in Default Fields
AND 
(remov* or decommission* or breach*) in Default Fields

    1. How many references do you get? ________________________
    2. Use the Refine search tab and Expanders to broaden your search to "search within the full text of articles."
    3. How many references do you get now? ____________________
    4. See if you can find the list of publications indexed in Newspaper Source. Are the Seattle Times Oregonian, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer included and if so, how far back is the coverage for each?
      • Seattle Times? _____ Years of coverage in Newspaper Source: ____________.
      • Seattle P-I? _____ Years of coverage in Newspaper Source:___________.
      • Oregonian? _______Years of coverage in Newspaper Source:__________.
    NOTE: The Oregonian (Newspaper) is available as a searchable database with full-text article from 1988-date, from the vendor, NewsBank. Lexis Nexis Academic from vendor Lexis Nexis also provides indexing to newspapers and full-text copies of many articles from a wide variety of US and international newspapers. So, if you find a reference to an article of interest elsewhere you may be able to locate the full text of that article in the Lexis Nexis Academic.
  5. There are numerous discipline specific databases that you would want to use if investigating one of these questions. However, the search strategy formulation process is largely the same.

Go to Answer Key.

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