An online group asked how to research historical novels, but the question could equally apply to science fiction or biography, or anything a writer isn't familiar with. Although nothing beats actually visiting a setting or talking directly to those who have witnessed events, a lot of my research is done the old-fashioned way, with Google, YouTube, or a local library catalogue. But what is a writer to do if that amazing online site she once visited has. . . disappeared?
No matter how often he hear that everything on the Internet is there to stay, sometimes it isn't. Fortunately, even dead urls may be retrievable via options such as the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Who could resist anything with a name like "Wayback Machine," reminiscent of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show? It's almost as cool a time machine as Back to the Future's DeLorean, and a lot more accessible.
I learned about Wayback, the real time travel machine, not the cartoon version, from a group of those equally cool characters known as librarians -- specifically Jeremy Brett of Texas A&M, Frances May (adjunct professor of information at the University of North Texas) and Stephanie Folse (web services librarian at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth) -- at the wonderful but now unfortunately defunct ConDFW science fiction/fantasy convention in North Texas.
(There are also more specialized archives, such as the Archive-It Collections for state agencies and organizations, and WebCite -- currently offline for maintenance -- although these are more limited than the Wayback Machine in the references they can retrieve.)
Even in this digitized era, Brett said, "I'm talking to more and more writers about science fiction as a genre for teaching about libraries, because the trope of libraries and librarians in the genre is so strong."
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| Image: Dave Tavres from Pixabay |
Much of it, of course, is now online, at sites such as Google Scholar, which indexes scholar literature across an array of disciplines, and WorldCat, the world's largest library catalogue (which may also be available through local library sites). "Google Scholar will sometimes try to sell you articles," Folse said, "but once you get a good title you can," (gasp!) "Google it!"
For more regional interests, there's The Portal to Texas History, the Smithsonian-affiliated Institute of Texas Cultures, or even the specialty collections of books and artifacts such as the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives. Cushing is the rare books and manuscripts repository at Texas A&M, where Brett is curator of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection, the job description that brought him to a science fiction convention in the first place.
A significant pitfall of online research is knowing what search terms to use. Who hasn't typed what seems to be a great word into a search engine only to come up with hundreds or thousands of pages? Google Scholar, among other search engines, can help locate the best search terms. Once you get those, as Folse said, "you get gold."
The biggest obstacle to online research is that so much information exists that has never been digitized. Putting information online takes money (and people) not only to scan items but to attach the metadata that makes them searchable. For tracking down those totally cool, desperately needed reference items that aren't online, there's no option except an actual library.
Research libraries at all U.S. institutions which receive public funds (which includes even most private colleges and universities) are open to the public, the librarians said. Just contact them ahead of time to be sure your visit won't conflict with their first priority of helping students and to be sure items in off-site storage are available during your visit. And for those unsure how to find any library? Just Google it.
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