When A Scientist Tries To Play Historian…
Becca Harrison writes:
As a science-y person, I am accustomed to the resources I need for literature-based research being readily available with a few strokes of keys into an online search engine. Cornell has provided us science-types access to virtually any information we can think of, and after today’s big announcement about your tax dollars being hard at work making data from federally funded research freely available to everyone, this is going to continue in a positive direction.
However, attacking the primary source literature of a historical paper is quite different and challenging for me. The first question I asked myself when getting started for this American Experience assignment was, “What the hell is an archive!?” I haven’t tried to tackle Chicago Style, yet …
About a week ago, I celebrated President’s Day by sending out emails to three starting places within the Library of Congress: The Science/Technology archive, the Law Library of Congress, and the Serial and Government Publications Division. I explained that I am looking for historical documents/primary sources from archives related to both food and technology in our system, as well as California’s proposition system in history — two seemingly unrelated topics that I am hoping to find a way to intertwine into my narrative (whatever that may be).
I knew just showing up at the archive would be a bad idea, but I was at a sincere disadvantage because it was a holiday weekend. So, regrettably, I did not start to receive responses from the librarians until the end of this week.
The information I finally did receive made it clear that there is actually a lot of preparatory work I can do from my computer before even showing up and overwhelming myself in the millions of texts at the Library of Congress. From the Science and Technology archive, I received this information in the response:
I should start in the Library of Congress online catalogue. This is the catalogue of books and journal titles, and they gave me a list of keywords they queried — having an objective party helping me come up with keywords was incredibly more successful than when I tried it myself for my outline a few weeks ago. They suggested: Genetically modified Foods; Food-biotechnology; Crops-genetic engineering; Crops-genetics; genetic engineering AND agriculture (Keyword or subject keyword search); and agricultural biotechnology. They noted that The Science Reference guide to sustainable agriculture is a little bit outdated, but the suggested subject headings may be useful.
Even more useful and timesaving, I learned that I could request the sources I want to look at even before I get to the library. For those of you reading, this means: Go get a reader’s card (if you haven’t done so already); first floor Madison Building.
Most of the texts related to this subject will be found in the stacks of the Adams Building, so the Science and Business Reading Room (5th Floor Adams) is where I will be camping out in the coming days to view them.
Evidently in Beltsville, Maryland there is the National Agricultural Library (NAL) that may also have some collections related to food history.
This librarian also kindly gave me suggestions for a few databases I can access — even through Cornell — including the Food, Science & Technology Abstracts (FSTA) and Food Science Source. I will likely try to avoid these I get more primary sources to work from (though my science brain will be trying to resist temptation).
Cornell’s Mann Library is one of the best agricultural libraries in the country, and I may even contact a research librarian there to ask what primary sources they may have. I am aware that they have massive collections of original journal articles scanned into their database; I just need to figure out how to best access it online from DC.
Because I am looking into both the history of technology used in the United States as a driving factor for California’s Proposition 37 (2012), as well as a how California’s Proposition system has evolved to allow such a case, I decided to contact a librarian at the Library of Congress’s Law Library.
I also finally heard back in regards to this inquiry, where they responded:
“As a general rule we collect state session laws and state codes but not much in the way of state legislative materials. In the case of California, we do have some materials related to their legislative process. The best way to see what we have is through searching our online catalogue. One of the keyword phrases we found useful to search on was “California referendum,” [which is one I would not have thought of, so hopefully this will be helpful!]. A related phrase, “California Legislature Senate Office of Research” helped find reports from this office which analyzed various ballot propositions. However with regard to this 2012 proposition, we suspect most of the information will be online. The links under the “Legislative” topic heading on our California Guide to Law Online may be helpful. In addition, here are the links to the California Senate Office of Research and the California Research Bureau. We would also suggest contacting the California Research Bureau’s parent institution the California State Library which we believe would know best how you could direct your research.”
I plan to meet with these librarians in the next week. At first glance, I plan to start by requesting:
1. Labeling genetically engineered foods: The Public Right to Know/From the office California Senator Tom Hayden
2. Eat your genes: how genetically modified food is entering our diet
3. Model national bio-safety law: a law to provide for the regulation of the import, deliberate release into the environment, placing on the market, and the contained use of genetically modified organisms and products thereof
4. Dinner at the new gene café: how genetic engineering is changing what we eat, how we live, and the global politics of food
5. In the matter of a public hearing on genetically modified crops in New York State: Before the New York State Senate Standing Committee on Higher Education and Standing Committee on Consumer Protection (2000)
6. California’s statewide initiative process by Charlene Wear Simmons
7. Your guide to a direct democracy: local initiative, referendum, and recall campaigns [California State Legislature, Senate Local Government Committee]
8. Public hearing on the initiative process, Los Angeles, California, Tuesday, October 10, 1972
9. Grassroots politics in the 1980’s: A case study
At face value, I think it’s hard to call this a “successful trip to the archive,” though I am confident it was an absolutely necessary (albeit annoying) step to making my first, physical step into Library of Congress all the more productive. I had not realized the broad expanse of resources available online, and I am sure better planning on my part will make better use of those available at the archives and libraries around DC.
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