Much of the initial work you will do in the class will be gathering background information on your city. Here are some suggestions for good ways to start finding this information.
Select two cities to explore "side by side" as you decide which would be the best for your urban studies research this quarter. For ideas of cities that might make good candidates for sustained, in depth research, you might check out the following resources.
Use EITHER/BOTH the Holman Library One Search tool or Worldcat, a tool for searching library catalogs all over the world, to scan what authors are writing about your city and to get a sense of your city's issues and character.
Tips for One Search:
Tips for WorldCat:
click on image to enlarge
Try doing a web search of the city name and "official website" (in quotes). This works for most cities
For international cities you may have to look harder to not just find the official tourist site.
To find the official (rather than tourist) website of an international city, Wikipedia provides a link to the government website from the city profile box on the upper right of the article page.
See if you can find current journalism ABOUT and FROM the cities you are exploring.
Strategy 1: Start at the library databases ProQuest News and Ebsco News to see if you can find news about your city.
Type in your city name and change the search field to Subject.
Strategy 2: For non-mainstream perspectives, search for your cities in two other Holman Library news databases:
Strategy 3: Search for news about your cities on the Web. Type in the city name and select a news limiter if available, or just type in the keyword news.
Strategy 1: In ProQuest find news published in your city by searching within Publications. Enter city name and change the dropdown from In Title to In Publication Summary.
Strategy 2: Search the Library Periodicals List for news from your cities.
Click on the link for the Holman Library One Search. In the green banner at the top of the page, click on Search the Periodicals List.
Strategy 3: Explore Today's Front Pages
For news about and from a city, explore Freedom Forum: Today’s Front Pages.
I hope you are excited about being in this class. You have the chance to learn about and research a city through the whole quarter, and this is exciting stuff! This page has some suggestions about where to start.
Fig. 2. Tokyo metro. tokyometro.jp/global/en/service/using.html. Web. Spring 2012.
Use the print worksheet (or download and complete it online) titled Choose your City.
Carefully walk through each step of the worksheet. ALL the resources you need for this preliminary exploration are on this page of the research guide. You will be asked to choose two cities that interest you for the quarter-long project and compare the research and resources on them.
If you are not sure where to start, step one of the worksheet and this page links to sources with ideas.
The second to last question asks you to name your first and second choices for a city to research.
Once you complete the worksheet, submit it to your instructor in class.