SPAN 247:
The Meaning of Family in Hispanic Cultures
Spring 2008 · Professor Elena Gascón-Vera

Contents:

Find dictionaries & thesauri
Find background information
Find books
Find scholarly journal articles
Key scholarly websites
Evaluating what you find

• $300 award for a paper or project of any length from a 100 or 200 level Wellesley College course (2 awards)
• $750 award for a paper or project of any length from a 300 level Wellesley College course, excluding 360s, and 370s (1 award)
• Deadline: April 1, 2008

• Oxford Language Dictionaries Online (Spanish)
• Tesauro de SIGNUM - finds synonyms & antonyms in Spanish
• Diccionarios - La Página del Idioma Español
• Specialized Spanish dictionaries in print: Clapp Reference PC2625 (regional variants, slang, technical vocabulary, etc.)
• Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionaries in print: Clapp Ref PC4640
  

• International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences - see esp. Area Studies and Family & Generations
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos & Latinas in the United States (on campus only) - in print: Clapp Reference E184 .S75 O97 2005
• Encyclopedia Latina - Clapp Reference E184 .S75 2005
• Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology (and other volumes) - Clapp Library E184 .S75 H365 1993 vol. 3
• Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture - Clapp Reference DP233.5 .E63 1999
• Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women's Issues Worldwide: Europe - Clapp Reference HQ1115 .G74 2003
• International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family - Clapp Reference HQ9 .E52 2003
  

Use the Wellesley library catalog to find books, videos, and journals (not individual articles).

• a few tips:

  • use synonyms to find all the ways your topic is expressed  (cat OR gato OR feline)
  • use truncation to save time (cuba* for Cuba, Cuban, cubana, cubano, etc.)
  • use Advanced Search and combine multiple concepts using AND for best results

  sample topic:  the role of the father in cuban society
  sample search: (father or paternal or paternity)
      AND cuba*
      leads to subjects like Sex role -- Cuba, or Cuban American families

• or use a keyword search for simple concepts, such as the notion of the family in Spain: search family spain
  
  
• find a book that looks useful, click on the title, then click on the Full Record tab to see the subject terms
• click on each subject term to find "more like this"

Some useful subject terms for this course:

• Family - [Country or region name], e.g. Family - Spain - History or Family - Latin America
• Family in literature
• Sex role in literature
• Spain - Social life and customs [or substitute another country]
  
  
• If our copy is checked out, click on or to the right of the title to request a book quickly (2-4 days)
  
  
• Search WorldCat to find material we don’t own, click on and request through ILL (interlibrary loan)
• In a hurry? Get a BLC card and borrow the book directly from a nearby library
• NEW! Search Google Books to explore the contents of books (use Advanced Search for more precision), then search our catalog to find or borrow the book

tips:

• to find the full text of an article, click on the title for the full record, then look for the Find It! @ Wellesley button to link to the full text (online if we have it, or in print, or to the Interlibrary loan request if we don't own the journal)
• NEW! to find the full text of an article from a print citation, use Citation Linker (fill in the journal title, year, volume, issue, and pages if you have them)
  
  
• do your searching early and place interlibrary loan requests NOW for books and articles we don't have -- then, when you're ready to start reading and writing, you'll have a great selection of materials. If you wait, your choices will be very limited.

most useful databases

     social sciences

• Sociological Abstracts
      index to articles on all aspects of sociology, including the family
• NEW! PsycINFO
      index to articles on all aspects of psychology
• LGBT Life
      index to the world's literature on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, with full text for 55 of the most important journals in the field.
• Women's Studies International
      indexes journal articles and books on women's studies, feminism, and gender studies, 1972 to present
  

     latin american studies

• HAPI - Hispanic American Periodicals Index
      index to social science and humanities journal articles about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, & Hispanics/Latinos in the United States
  
• Informe
      indexing, full text, and images to scholarly and popular Spanish-language and bilingual publications - search en Español!
  
• Handbook of Latin American Studies
      index with abstracts of articles, book chapters, and papers on Latin American life & culture, 1935 to present
  

     literature

• MLA Bibliography
      articles on all things literary - all genres, all cultures, all languages
  
• Literature Resource Center
      full text articles of literary criticism, covering all genres - more Western/Northern in coverage
      search an author or title, then select the literary criticism tab
  
  

databases with some useful content

• Academic Search Premier and Expanded Academic ASAP
      great starting points for scholarly & popular articles in every discipline; mostly full text from about 1980 to present
     tip: limit to scholarly or peer-reviewed articles
  
• Periodicals Index Online
      index to articles published in over 4500 journals in the humanities & social sciences in 40 languages, 1665 to 1995, many links to full text
  
• JSTOR
      full text of scholarly articles in all fields, up to 3 to 5 years ago (not recent articles!)
     NEW! to improve your results in JSTOR:
  • go to Advanced Search
  • change search type from "full text" to "abstract"
  • select journals below the search boxes: check off Latin American Studies and Sociology
       
• NEW! Google Scholar (use Advanced Search for more precision) - click on Find It@Wellesley to get to the full text (or the interlibrary loan request)

• NEW! Pew Hispanic Center: Reports on Education
• Iberian Studies Web
• Internet para Hispanistas
• Latin American Network Information Centre (LANIC) - Humanities & Society & Culture
• Latin American Arts & Culture
  

Criteria to keep in mind when choosing and using soures:

• Accuracy - Does the author cite her/his sources and are they legitimate?
• Authority - Who wrote the source? Are they credible?
• Objectivity - Does the author have a bias, political or commercial or persuasive?
• Currency - Is this information new or based on outdated sources? Can you tell how current it is?

Wellesley College Library • WCIS • Laura Reiner • last modified:February 28, 2008