Spanish / Latin American Information Sources
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Advanced research in Spanish combines many elements besides your topic: mastery of the language, knowledge of the culture of one or more countries, and study of another discipline such as literature, history, education, or business as it relates to your region. The breadth of this task means that you must look in many parts of the library and web and seek materials varied in both format and language. These notes are designed to refine your search methodology.
Some preliminary questions to ask yourself:
In addition to containing information on your topic, what proportion of your material needs to be written in Spanish? How much should be published in a Spanish-speaking country and/or reflect a Hispanic viewpoint? Do your time constraints require items to be fulltext or owned by the library, or can some of them be ordered through ILL? Finally, how will you apply critical thinking to determine if the resources you find are "good information"?
Reference works [obras de consulta] |
expert-written background articles
situation of your narrow topic within a broad panorama
basic facts and figures
selected bibliographic references
Search strategies:
- keyword/Boolean search of Hedberg Library catalog in which you combine a word like encyclopedia / dictionary / guide and [broad topic term], possibly limited by Location: Reference and/or Language: Spanish
- browse the Hedberg reference section where, for example, you can find bilingual and monolingual Spanish dictionaries in PC classification, encyclopedias of Latin American history in F, reference works on U.S. Hispanics in E 184, Spanish culture in DP, and guides to Hispanic literatures in PQ and E 184.
- ask a librarian!
Sample keyword search in the Carthage Innovative library catalog:
Fifty-some reference works concerning different aspects of Spain and/or Latin American nations are retrieved
by the above search. A few—especially monolingual and bilingual dictionaries—are in Spanish.
Component volumes of a series can be quite hard to identify. If you are looking for extensive overviews of Spanish or Latin American writers, try Dictionary of Literary Biography, Ref PS 21 D554… for volumes listed below:
Chicano Writers. 1st series. Ed. Francisco A. Lomelí and Carl R. Shirley. Detroit: Gale Research, 1989. (Vol. 82) Twentieth-Century Spanish Poets. 1st series. Ed. Michael L. Perna. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. (Vol. 108) Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers. 1st series. Ed. William Luis. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. (Vol. 113) Chicano Writers. 2nd series. Ed. Francisco A. Lomelí and Carl R. Shirley. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. (Vol. 122) Twentieth-Century Spanish Poets. 2nd series. Ed. Jerry Phillips Winfield. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994. (Vol. 134) Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers. 2nd series. Ed. William Luis and Ann González. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994. (Vol. 145) |
Book chapters are likewise hard to find, unless you carefully examine the contents of a broad title. For example, you may have to browse the "CIA Factbook" to discover your nation among 268 country profiles full of geographical, demographic, governmental, economical, infrastructure data.
2005 World Factbook
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
Books [libros] |
broad treatment of important topics
quality of work assured by big-name academic and commercial publishers
Search strategies:
- for a keyword/Boolean search of Carthage library catalog, combine different concepts with and, synonyms or alternatives with or, and use parentheses to group terms and truncation (*) to retrieve all words that begin with the same letters
- the Carthage library catalog allows you to limit, or Modify search, to books written in Spanish
- when you find a good book, get more like it by clicking on hyperlinked Subject term
- keyword searching allows you to input words in Spanish, but only the title field, not subjects or notes, can contain non-English words, so this should not be your only search method
- search on the most specific terms possible, and then go on to broader, narrower, and related terms
- for citations of more books, many of which can be ILLed, search BadgerCat or WorldCat
- books can be borrowed in person with your Carthage ID from UW-Parkside, GTI, and Kenosha PL
Journal articles [artículos de revista] |
shorter, more narrowly focused, and more up-to-date than books
Spanish-language licensed databases, either indexes or fulltext, seem to be less developed than in the US, are dedicated more to natural and social sciences than to humanities and arts, and are often available on a subscription basis only
Search strategies:
- keyword/Boolean searching, combining different concepts with and, synonyms or alternatives with or, and using parentheses to group terms and truncation (* or ?) to retrieve all words that begin in the same way
- some databases allow you to limit to fulltext or scholarly/refereed journals
- if an advanced database gives only citation and/or abstract, but not fulltext, you may still be able to retrieve the article by searching for the journal title and date in the Hedberg Library catalog (for paper copy or microform) and in EBSCO A-to-Z (for electronic copy); if neither contains the journal issue, you can order the article by InterLibrary Loan
- try EBSCOhost and InfoTrac general academic and business databases for Hispanic content expressed in English
- subject-specific databases such as ERIC, ATLA Religion Database, MLA Bibliography (all EBSCOhost), and LEXIS-NEXIS bear searching for Spanish language, either as a field or a limiter, as well as Hispanic content
- Academic OneFile contains nearly three hundred journals in Spanish, but cannot search for Spanish only
Carthage now offers access to several important Hispanic databases:
HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index) HLAS Online (Handbook of Latin American Studies) ClasePeriódica |
You may be able to locate free online Hispanic article indexes by searching on índice (or base de datos) revistas in an English- or Spanish-language search engine. A proxy will be needed to search most Carthage databases from off campus; some will be available only on campus.
detailed information, frequently local, often polemic in nature
need to analyze point of view and evaluate critically
Search strategies:
- check existence and depth of archivo / backfile
- Búsqueda / Buscar mechanism in web software will find articles on your topic
- Edit > Find in page feature of browser will take you to selected word
Sample resources:
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe Zona Latina: Latin American Newspapers [hyperlink list] ABYZ News Links—Newspapers and News Sources [worldwide hyperlink list] Prensa escrita—Todos los periódicos diarios CNNenEspañol BBC Mundo.com |
Internet [Internet, la Red, la Web] |
huge!!!
evaluation requires super-acute critical thinking
Search strategies:
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Spanish &/or Latin American search engine lists |
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Tu Bibliotecario Electrónico: Una Guía al Internet Enlaces a Buscadores LatinoAmericanos, Directorios y Buscadores Hispanoamericanos Buscadores latinoamericanos CiberCentro—Periódicos, Buscadores, Diarios, información general para Latinoamérica |
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use hyperlinks of US search engines to reach their sites in Spanish-speaking local domains |
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select Spanish-language option in US search engines (usually under Advanced search filters, Preferences, or Settings) |
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Choosing a search engine approach to retrieval of materials in Spanish can be challenging. US search engines are larger and more efficient, and entering Spanish terms can be a remarkably quick solution. Limiting the results of US search engines to Spanish yields fewer items to scan manually, but it may overlook important English-language material. Local domain versions of US search engines, while few in number, can contain regional items not available elsewhere. And search engines native to the country of interest, while usually limited in quantity of contents, offer the advantage of an other-country approach to information. For an ambitious project like a thesis, trying each different strategy may yield the most complete results.
Sample web resources:
Latin American Network Information Center--LANIC Internet Resources for Latin America (New Mexico State Univ. library) |
Both print and electronic style guides are available, the former in the Hedberg reference area, and the latter linked to the Carthage web page. Check with your instructor before choosing a particular style for course related work.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001. Ref BF 76.7 P83 Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1998. Ref PN 147 G437 M3 The Chicago Manual of Style. 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Ref Z 253 U69 How to Cite Your Sources Referencias y citas bibliográficas, by Rebeca Landeau |
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Maintained by Tina Eger
Updated 2 May 2008