Friday, March 8, 2013

3/4 to 3/8

This week was both exciting and frustrating. As with the previous weeks, the objective of this past week was to find more useful sources to categorize and enter into the Zotero program. I managed to find many more useful dissertations- which was actually quite joyful. I've gained a pretty solid familiarity with the Proquest database and I seem to always walk away from Proquest with (at least) a handful of new sources to put into Zotero. The only qualms that I have regarding the dissertations I've acquired is that some of them seem to be either too specific to one particular subject or (to the opposite) rather general. Regardless- I've entered anything that I felt "iffy" about into the program in the event that it does provide some benefit.
This week I also started searching for relevant journal articles. This experience had its ups and downs. Initially- I was having a blast. I was finding a handful of things pertaining to each of the five universities that BizEd focuses on. However, this joy was rather short-lived once I experienced some confusing moments with the America: History and Life database. For example- in the search bar I entered "Arizona State University" (in an advanced search) and entered "funding" into the subsequent search bar so that both terms would be searched simultaneously. This particular combination yielded zero results. This dumbfounded me because I find it hard to believe that zero articles exist pertaining to funding of Arizona State University. Despite these rather odd (and perplexing) roadblocks I encountered, I was eventually able to work with the database in such a way that lead me to some solid sources.
I also found some pretty useful books- which necessitated a trip to Loyola's Lewis Library. There is one book in particular that seems to be absolutely perfect for my field of research. I can't wait to get my hands on it once it comes in via inter-library loan.
When all is said and done- I would consider this week to be a success. It felt great to look up sources other than dissertations and I firmly believe that (like with the Proquest database) I will in time become more efficient with America: History and Life.

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