#bascomhill

By: Anna Dinkel (she/her/hers)

As we enter into the finals season and the semester draws to a close I wanted to give some thoughtful tips for using your friendly Archives. Many of you may soon have projects that will give you unrest, but some helpful tips for searching and finding materials may make your search much easier-- and more concise. If you are looking up materials in the UW Archives it can sometimes be hard to find materials related to your search. You may end up with resources that you feel are much too broad, or your topic may be so specific that your search results continue to return zero results. 

Alas, I have some good news for all of the research that will be conducted within our walls the next three weeks. Finding information is easy if you are willing to be flexible and think through your search strategy beforehand. I will use one instance to demonstrate this. Since I would love to give you all some beautiful winter imagery among this somewhat mundane subject I am going to start with the search inquiry: I would like to see images of Bascom Hill with snow on it. However, if I type that exact string into my keyword search I will get zilch (read: nothing!). 

“Students trudge through snow on Bascom Hill,” Image Courtesy of the UW-Madison Archives, S16037.

Instead, what I would suggest, and what has proven a very valuable addition to many researchers lives is thinking about what synonyms or facets of this search could also yield results for us. For example, instead of Bascom Hill I may have to be creative and try UW Madison, UW Madison campus, or central campus. In a keyword search I would also make sure to put all of these in quotation marks so the words stick together in the search. For snow I may have to try winter, bad weather, snowflakes, or any other number of ways to iterate the concept I am getting at-- Wisconsinites should have no trouble coming up with synonyms for this. 

“View of Capitol,” Image Courtesy of the UW-Madison Archives, S16035.

This exercise can be helpful for any kind of research in the UW Libraries catalog. If you are getting results that are unwanted, or you’re not getting enough of what you really need, try expanding or compressing your ideas. It is simple and easy to make a mind map and try this for a topic you know well, but sometimes it may be hard to think of alternative terms for something you’ve just started. That is where some handy-dandy thesauri and your local librarian (or archivist!) can be very helpful. This is just one strategy that can help diminish some stress in your life if you have a clear and thoughtful research “book of terms.” 

If you do need help over the next few weeks as finals approach, don’t hesitate to come ask us a question about your Archives search! We are more than willing to help you do some sleuthing and figure out the best plan of action (and sometimes the best synonyms) to help you succeed in the catalog search, and then eventually, in retrieving resources and boxes from the basement. And, hopefully, we can find some hidden gems in the collection amidst the end of the semester and the dawn of the winter (AND snow OR snowy). Best of luck with finals and as a reminder we are located here on the fourth floor of Steenbock, just a hop and skip away, Monday-Friday 9:00 am-5:00 pm!