Using Amazon.com As A Research Tool

As you well know, Amazon.com is a huge retailer of a huge variety of products. When it opened its virtual doors in 1995 the company sold books and only books. Today you can buy just about everything from Amazon, including the proverbial “kitchen sink.”

So where does this retailing behemoth fit into Finding Stuff? Several ways, actually.

One Way is to Use Amazon's Vast List of Titles

The site catalogs over 24.5 million paperbacks and 9.5 million hard backs. Perusing these lists is a great method for finding finding stuff about a particular book or topic. A search for “mining swindles” brings up 48 titles that Amazon’s engine deems relevant (including Mark Twain’s wonderful Roughing It). Let’s take as an example Anthony Comstock’s Frauds Exposed Or How The People Are Deceived And Robbed, And Youth Corrupted, published in 1880.

Amazon lists a 2006 facsimile reprint edition of this book, released by Kessenger Publishing (who claim a copyright for a title already in the public domain, which I take issue with, but that’s a whole different blog). Amazon sells this version for $14.99 in paperback. But . . . the same title is available for free on the Internet Archive. 

However, unless you knew the title, you wouldn’t easily find Comstock on the Archive; certainly not under “mining swindles,” which turns up zero results. And an identical search on WorldCat identifies several items (like Dr. Swindle’s Application of the Limited Frequency-Unannounced Access Strategy Measurement Technology In Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant), but not Comstock. 

By using Amazon.com as a pathfinder, you can track down all sorts of useful sources.

"Look Inside" is Another Way Amazon Can be Helpful

Think of the feature as a preview of a particular title’s content.

Our example will be a volume that showed up during the “mining swindles” search on Amazon: Old West Swindlers by Laurence Yadon and Robert Smith, a paperback published in 2011. The publisher took advantage of Amazon’s Look Inside to upload some of the book’s content. Only a few pages of text are available. But what’s of most interest to me is the Table of Contents, the Index, the Bibliography, and the Notes.

I don’t know about you, but when picking up a book the first thing I do is check out the back matter to see if there are any sources the authors turned up that might be useful to my cause. In this case three subjects-of-particular-interest are listed in the Index, and the TOC shows that one chapter is devoted to their fraud. Alas, the notes for that chapter are not included in the preview.

Want to read Old West Swindlers? There are a couple of options. Buy a copy (either printed or the slightly cheaper Kindle version) or order it through Inter-Library Loan (ILL). 

Sometimes you’ll run across Amazon Looks Inside that include the entire text. If you find one of these, you’ll need to read it off the screen (no printing allowed).

Finally, Amazon is a Useful Research Tool for Book Proposals

Need to know what’s out there in the way of competition, and also what’s available that might be complementary? Amazon is one of the best sources for this sort of information. Do try to avoid looking at the rankings; they can be depressing. If all the complementary books are down in the 8 millionth range you may want to consider a different topic.

On the next post we’ll start in on exploring Google Earth for finding stuff (or more to the point, for visualizing what a place and its surroundings look like).

Brussels Sprouts, WorldCat, and Inter-Library Loan

Remember having to go to the library to dig through rows of card catalogs to see if they had a book you wanted, or a section on a particular subject (979 was one of my favorites: General History of North America; Great Basin & Pacific Slope)? Those days are pretty much gone now. Most libraries in the U.S. and Canada have digitized their card catalogs, and has made it a whole lot easier to search electronically for niche subjects.

I happen to live in a rural area of the Pacific Northwest. Our local library is pretty small; it just doesn’t have the books in the stacks that will help me research my projects. The nearest truly serious library is a three-hour drive to the state university. That’s inconvenient. And any way, the whole point of this blog is to find stuff using your computer.

A Great Place to Start Looking is the WorldCat

This site is, as they say on their “About” page, “the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.” And they deliver. The screen shot shows a search for "mining swindles."

When you open up the home page there’ll be a search box on the left with a few choices: Everything, Books, DVDs, CDs, and Articles. Let’s search for the subject I’ve mentioned in the two past posts: Mr Asbury. I enter the name, then click on Everything.

Tip: WorldCat results generally do not provide descriptions of what’s in the book. For more information you can try a search on Amazon Books or a title search on a browser. If it's an older book, you can also check the Internet Archive to see if they offer a download.

The first two items to show up in Asbury’s results are his autobiography. By clicking on the first entry a page with some details pops up. Among the items is a list of which libraries near me have a physical copy (WorldCat knows my ZIP code). The entry indicates that what is available is a 1958 edition published by the University of Oklahoma Press. By clicking on one of the repositories I learn that the state historical society holds one copy. But unless I want to drive a few hours, over the Continental Divide no less, I’ll have to find another way to get the book.

The Wonderful Invention Called ILL

ILL stands for Inter-Library Loan, which most of you have already heard about and perhaps have made use of yourself. And the best thing about ILL? It’s absolutely Free.

Okay, this is one of those times when you’ll need to get up from the computer and go mobile, because most libraries will only accept an Inter-Library Loan request in person. I generally print out the detail page for the book(s) I want, then hop in the car for the ten-minute drive to the county library. There, on the second floor, is the ILL desk. I fill out a form, hand it to the librarian, stop by the grocery store on the way home for some Brussels sprouts, sauté them with some bacon, and sit and wait in the comfort of my office. 

In about two weeks—long after the sprouts are consumed— the local library will email or call me to say that my ILL book is in. I need to go back in to pick up the volume. Typically I can check it out for at least two weeks or a month (and sometimes, they’ll let me request an extension).

Let’s Look at Some of the Other Results

Number 6 in our WorldCat Asbury search is an article from The Register of the State Historical Society entitled “Privateers in California,” and listing the volume and page numbers. Several of the subjects I’m researching were from that state, so there might be something here for me. How to get a copy of it?

ILL might be able to help me, but the chances they could borrow the item are pretty slim. Why not contact the historical society directly? I scanned their website to see if the article had been digitized. It had not. Next step? Because I know the details of where the item is I can ask the society to make me a copy. All that was necessary was to print out a request form, fill in the data, and mail it to the society along with a check ($5.00 plus $.30 each for twelve pages). 

(n.b.: I found this item only while writing this post—I had no idea it existed until just now. Ya gotta love the web.)

Item 11 looks really interesting: a letter to a mining partner. Looking at the detail WorldCat provids revealed that the missive was part of my guy’s personal papers, held at the University of California and the California Historical Society. That’s going to be well worth pursuing, but I’ll wait until later to do a more comprehensive search (and if I’m really, really lucky, there will be a folder-level inventory of the collection on the web).

By Clicking on "Everything" WorldCat Gives You More Than Just Books

Sometimes you’ll find material available on microform (either microfilm reels or microfiche sheets), and these often circulate through ILL (as do CDs and DVDs). As noted above, you can usually get photocopies of articles, for free or a small fee, from the repository or journal that holds them.

Tip: Most public and college libraries have public-use microform reader/printers.

Any comments or questions? Please drop me a line.

Next time we’ll explore using Amazon.com as a research source—really.

Finding And Using Free Digital Books – The Internet Archive and More

Did you know that over three million books have been digitized and uploaded to the Internet? Or that accessing and using them is free? To me, this library of ones and zeroes is one of the great resources on the web.

The Best Site is the nonprofit Internet Archive

Founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle, this huge collection includes printed material of all sorts (including foreign language texts, pamphlets, and militaria), over 100,000 concert recordings (9,000 from Grateful Dead shows alone), and thousands of motion pictures and video (like home movies and old TV commercials). 

There is a “however . . .” here. If you’re looking for books published in the past ninety years the Internet Archive may not be able to help you. That’s because the vast majority uploaded to the Archive were published prior to 1923, which means, according to U.S. Copyright Law, they’re in the “public domain.” It won’t be until 2019 that books published in 1923 drop into the public domain. The following year, 1924 books become available, and so on (unless Congress changes the law). 

There are many 1923 to 2012 items available from the Internet Archive, but these tend to be government publications, academic material, and books that were not properly copyrighted in the first place. So if your subject matter is post-1922, then digital libraries may not be particularly helpful to your cause. That’s where WorldCat,  ILL, and Amazon may be of some assistance (more upcoming posts).

How to Take Advantage of the Internet Archive

When you open the site there is a search box on the left. Type in your subject, title, or author, and be sure to click “texts” in the box to its right. Be aware that the search WILL NOT look for individual words within a publication. Click Enter.

Tip: If nothing shows up on the search, try variations—different names, subjects, combinations.

If there is something available in the Archive, a list of results will appear. In my last post I mentioned a subject named Asbury, who had written an autobiography. A search brought up five listings—four of which were relevant. 

Confronted with four seemingly identical choices, which one to pick? I usually click on the one that has been downloaded most often. In this case (and on the day I’m writing this) the third entry has the most—309. So I click on that.

The next page has a lot of information about the book: who contributed it, who digitized it, even the type of equipment used to scan it. On the left side is a box that says “View the book,” and gives me several choices.

Your best bet is to click “Read Online” first. This brings up a reading copy that you can page through, and better yet, search for individual words. If it finds the word you want, it will show flags to indicate the location. If you only need a couple of pages, you can print directly from the reader by right clicking, then clicking “View Image,” and print each image page singly. As near I can figure, there is no way to save the entire “Read Online” file.

But, you can save it in another format. Do you want PDF? EPUB? Kindle? Full Text (HTML)? Pick the one that’s going to work best for you (I usually opt for the PDF), and follow the onscreen instructions.

Tip: If the scan you’re looking at is particularly dark or faded, try one of the other search results for that title.

If the file has been digitized by Google, the procedure for downloading is a little different. When you click on a Google PDF in the "View the book" box, it will take you to a Google Books page. Look over on the left side for a red box that says “Ebook – Free.” Move your cursor onto the box and hold it there without clicking. This will bring up another box, toward the bottom of which is a link “Download PDF.” Slide the cursor onto this link and then click on the letters “PDF.” A new page with a “Captcha” box appears. Type in the answer, click “submit,” and then you’ll be able to download the file.

One nice feature of the Google approach is that the page will show you an algorithmically-generated, illustrated list of “Related Books.” Sometimes there are nuggets to be found—be sure to check them out.

The Internet Archive is Not the Only Source for Free Digital Books

The Library of Congress  offers a selection. An Australian site has a links page called the Best World Free Digital Libraries. The Online Books Page, posted by the University of Pennsylvania, has an extensive list of digital books (most of which come from other collections). As part of their “Making of America” series, Cornell and the University of Michigan have a number of texts available (we’ll get into their magazine offerings in another post). And there are many more.

Tip: If a source you discover refers to a particular book, see if it’s available on the Internet Archive.

Next time we’ll find stuff using tools like WorldCat and Inter-Library Loan.

Let's Get Started

Welcome to Finding Stuff, a blog on Internet research techniques for fiction and nonfiction writers that will help you find nuggets of history to extend or enliven your narratives. Each post focuses on a different aspect of research, from the very basic “go to your local library” to the more esoteric “using digital maps and imagery,” or “pushing search engines to their limits.”

I’m one of those writers who loves to include myriad details as a means of giving a strong sense of place and time in a work—“verisimilitude,” some call it. When writers ask me how to find all this stuff, the three words that come to mind are Patience, Perseverance, and Imagination.

Patience. The Internet is a very big place. The amount of information available seems almost incalculable. When you start in on your search don’t expect to find everything at once. Take little chunks at a time. Take one word, one name, and follow it to its digital conclusion.

Perseverance. Keep plugging away at your topic. Try every variation. Try combinations. Try it now. Try it tonight, tomorrow, next week. Follow every link and lead, and when a search show promise, repeat the process: try every variation, try combinations, try it now, try it . . .

Imagination. “Think outside the box” is a terrible cliché that’s been floating around for so long it’s become a “paradigm.” But when it comes to thoroughly researching a subject, you need to do just that—you need to use your imagination to think up search paths, no matter how wild or crazy they seem. Sometimes these will lead you nowhere. But sometimes . . . you strike gold. 

For my ongoing project about an 1870’s mining swindle, I profitably employed PPI to build a portrait of one of the main characters: a fellow we’ll call Asbury. A quick initial Internet search showed many sites that discussed an autobiography he self-published in the early 1900s. That gave me a basic (though one-sided) bio. By patiently following every lead, over the course of a couple of months I was able to construct a three-year timeline of his activities, including, for example, the date of his arrival in New York from a promotion trip to England, the ship he sailed on and the friends who sailed with him; the hotels he stayed at in New York and London; the date of his arrival in San Francisco on the transcontinental train; and the things he did and the people he met when he got there. This information not only helped me track his movements, but gave some valuable insight into his personality.

This search took me through newspaper archives on two continents, court transcripts, steamship passenger lists, memoirs and histories, and a variety of first-person accounts. And all this was accomplished digitally from the comfort of my home office. 

Next time we’ll look at how to find and use digital books on almost any subject you can imagine.