Historic Language and Historic Newspapers: Strategies for Breaking the Language Barrier

Historic Language and Historic Newspapers: Strategies for Breaking the Language Barrier

Christopher Cronin, University of Colorado at BoulderMartha Hanscom, University of WyomingNancy Chaffin, Colorado State University

Colorado Association of Libraries ConferenceNovember 11, 2005

Collaborative Digitization Programwww.cdpheritage.org2005__________________________________________

AgendaIntroduction to the collectionIssues around using historical newspapersGeneral search strategies Keyword searchingStop ListSearching broad and narrow topics




Colorados Historic Newspaper Collectionhttp://www.cdpheritage.org/collection/chnc.cfm Collaborative project between the CDP, Colorado State Library, and Colorado Historical SocietyLibrary Services & Technology Act (LSTA)/Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to digitize the microfilm of Colorado newspapersStarted with 48 newspapers from 1859-1880, but grew to 85 newspapers though the year 1923


Using Historic NewspapersTechnological: Optical Character Recognition (OCR)Accuracy is dependent on the quality of the microfilm, and quality of the original when it was microfilmedCultural: changes in publishing practices, journalistic practice, and language usage.



Differences in Journalistic PracticeShorter articlesMixture of fact and opinionVariant language usage: from obsolete and archaic to derogatory and offensiveAdditional resources:Newspapers by Anne Rubenstein, on the Center for History and New Media web site (George Mason University). Available: http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/unpacking/newsmain.html Uncovering our history: teaching with primary sources by Susan H. Veccia (American Library Association, 2004)


General Search Strategies 1 Broad topics: if youre interested in transportation, search for specific modes of transportRailroads, stage coach, horses, wagons, automobilesEven more specific: names of transportation companies like Union Pacific, or Ford and Buick


General Search Strategies 2Limit searches for common terms to specific dates or newspapersBe creative when searching for geographic areasBroaden and narrow searches appropriately based on results: if a newspaper doesnt list Ford, search under cars or automobiles


Keyword SearchingSee pages 3-5 of the Searching Colorados Historic Newspaper Collection handoutConnectors: and, or, notPhrase: quotation marks (plus connectors if needed)Only case-sensitive when an initial capital is usedTruncation/wildcard: asterisk (*)Punctuation: do not use apostrophes ()Spelling: be aware of alternate spellingsAbbreviations: be aware of different practices in abbreviations (e.g., Wm. for William)


Stop ListDo not search with common words: a, an, at, theWords that are too common will generate an error message: The following errors occurred: The query string is empty. The following words are very common and were not included in your search: [term]Use asterisks creatively: Gre* War


Searching for a broad topic Immigration


StrategyChoose a topicRead secondary sources Use a thesaurus to find words to search


StrategyBreak up topic into smaller elementsSearch one aspectExamples: Education or languageLimit search by date range or geographic area


StrategyUse wild cards (*)*migration or immigra*Combine termsImmigrants and literateTry alternate spellingsTheater or theatre


Strategy

Test the search strategy See what results you get Get ideas for other search termsRefine the search Try the search again


Searching Colorados Historic Newspaper Collection













Examples of search results



























Colorados Historic Newspapers Collection:Germans from Russia:

Searching for a specific immigrant group


Searching strategies: Background informationDatesCHNC: 1859-1923Germans from Russia: 1885-1924TerminologyVolga GermansRussiansBlack Sea GermansSpecific locationsGlobevilleLarimer, Weld, Morgan, Logan Counties (South Platte watershed)Pueblo

Source: Rock, Kenneth W., Unsere Leute: The Germans from Russia in Colorado. Colorado History Magazine, v. 54, no. 2 (1977) pp 154-183.















Questions?


Conclusion

The address on the slide redirects you to a different sort of newspaper home page at http://www.cdpheritage.org/collection/chnc.cfmhttp://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org is the address of the page with the map Step by step through the search processYour next slide says to click on the map, so we should probably have the map here. Click on map to search a regionBrowse screen [note: screen capture screws up the year and month; I cant get it any better]I redid the picture from my computer and the date appears okay now. full page from browse full page in background, with article enlarged (from Colo. Weekly chieftain, Nov. 3, 1870, p. 1)

Choose search all tab for all the papersSelect one, several, or all newspapers; choose all, articles, pictures or ads; Select to search within: Complete test, headlines, bylines

The pulldown menu for sort by covers the Select content choices, so I inserted an additional screen -- njc

score = score, title, word count, date, publ. [wont capture display]ADDED SLIDE TO SHOW DROPDOWN (DROP UP!) MENU FOR SORT BY--NJCSearch results page, with one article enlarged

very short and very long, magazine-like; example of search results header from another part of the page

historic terminologyAttracting immigrants the Colo. Board of ImmigrationSources of foreign immigrantsImmigrants arent all foreign; desirable immigrants more desirable immigrants Nebraska is stealing Colorados immigrants Immigrants are big business to RRs Rivalry with Canada for immigrants

Social issues associated with immigration Economic conditions Education, literacy kinds of work available miningLabor unions Immigration bill(s); lots of discussion about them ethnic culture, easiest to search these by specific ethnic group; lead into Germans from Russia Now, I would like to demonstrate a more focused type of search, using the Germans from Russia immigrant group as an example.Before embarking on research a specific topic, it is important to build a background of information, usually from secondary resources. For the purposes of this talk, secondary resources are considered publications about the topic, but created after the time. Usually, these are books, journal articles, even documentary films, but are not limited to those media. With the specific topic of the immigrant group Germans from Russia, secondary sources help identify:Dates: The CHNC spans 64 years, from 1859 to 1928, but the bulk of the immigration for the Germans from Russia were between 1870 to 19??Terminology. Germans from Russia is the accepted term for this immigrant group today, but they have been variously known as: Volga Germans, Russians, Black Sea Germans, Mennonites from Russia, etc.Specific locations: The Germans from Russia tended to settle in geographic regions that resemble the geography in Russia from whence they came, generally, the plains portion of Colorado (eastern Colorado), and because they were recruited for working in the sugar beet fields, those areas of Colorado with large sugar beet operations. Larimer, Weld, Morgan and Logan Counties drew the largest numbers of immigrants, so a focused search would limit to newspapers from those counties, or at least that general area.Source: Rock, Kenneth, etc.

By identifying when and where, and what terms might be useful, it allows you to concentrate your research in areas that are more likely to achieve good results without a lot of irrelevant hits. Note that background was provided by just a single journal article, albeit a thorough one by one of the authorities in research on this immigrant group, so your background work doesnt have to be extensive. Sort of like asking students to read an encyclopedia article on their topic as the first step in their research.The Regional map pulls newspapers from that region together, which collocates regional newspapers without including all the newspapers.Chose Front Range region (green) to start search for articles on Germans from Russia, as most of them settled in Larimer and Weld counties. Note that Logan and Morgan counties are listed in the blue (Eastern Plains Region), however, there are only 4 newspapers at present in that Region, none from Logan or Morgan Counties.After selecting the region, I enter my search terms; select publications from Larimer and Weld County newspapers, Indicated date ranges, selected to search content in the complete text of articles, and to return results sorted by Date Ascending.Here are the results. And while 139 articles are a lot to look through, but by focusing based on date range, location, and articles, many irrelevant hit were eliminated. Note that although I limited the date to 1885-1923, there are actually 14 articles dated 1874-1884. Ive reported this, but havent heard back as to why.

Of course, no all irrelevant hits are eliminated. This list of tidbits is considered a single article by the software, and when both German and Russian were found in the same article, this was retrieved. But there are a number of relevant stories as well, as this report of a field trip taken by Greeley farmers and merchants to visit the sugar beet fields near Loveland, to investigate the cheap labor (Russian Germans) working there.

Now, 342 articles are still a lot to look at, but much better than 2,438!

Users of these newspapers should also be aware that not all articles contain accurate information. This blurb from an 1885 Four Collins Courier issue states that Many Germans in Russia re being force to leave; in fact, the Germans chose to leave due to the tsar removing privileges given to them by Catherine II in the 1760s.In this Country Correspondence report by ABC (Whoever that is) in the April 6, 1899 issue of the Greeley Tribune, a reference is made to the Russian Settlement 12 miles north of here (here being Weldon Valley). This would prompt a search for the community referenced, to see if the settlers might have been Germans from Russia. Here I am searching for news articles, 1885 to 1923 on Globeville, as this was the area where the first Germans from Russia settled in Colorado, according to Dr. Rocks article.Of the 102 articles found, many are from the Swedish language newspaper Svensk Amerikanska Western. As I dont read Swedish, so I wanted to limit my search to English language only.At the bottom of the screen you can see that there is a box to Select Language. At present, this feature does not work properly in CHNC, and since the Swedish newspaper was the only source I wanted to eliminate, I used the mouse-shift and mouse-control to select everything except Svensk Amerikanska to search.Here you can see I now only have 32 articles to examine, and while there are still irrelevant or only tangentially relevant articles, it was easier and quicker to findThis article from the May 12, 1909 Weekly Courier (Fort Collins). Was the most relevant hit from this refined search.When searching for one of the family names in the Germans From Russia in Colorado Special Collections at Colorado State University Libraries, I ran across the article on the left, but wasnt sure Adam was a German from Russia. Im still not sure, but the article on the right (1 year laterAdam seemed to be something of a troublemaker) confirms at least that he was foreign born.

Historic Language and Historic Newspapers: Strategies for Breaking the Language Barrier

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