Comedy & Community: Some Strategies for Research

1. Comedy & Community:Some Strategies for Research

2. Comedy & Community:Some Strategies for Research Babbalooo, Lucy! I’m so essited! We gonna learn about library research Gary Handman Director Media Resources Center Moffitt Library

3. Writing About Film… Scholarly Current Pop Historical Fan

4. Comedy & Community : Some Strategies for Research Sources for Film & TV Scholarship and Research • Journals, Magazines, Newspapers • Reviews • Critical/ScholarlyArticles • Books • Web Sites • Other online databases

5. Comedy & Community • Books • Scholarly/authoritative works • Pop schlock and fan works • How Do You Tell em’ apart? • Author’s credentials/affiliations • Publisher (e.g. BFI, AFI, University Presses vs pop press) • Scholarly apparatus and sources: notes, bibliographies, other documentation • If they’ve been widely cited by other scholars

6. Comedy & Community • REVIEWS • Current • Historical • Found in: • Popular & fan journals and newspapers • Film studies & scholarly journals • Web sites • Fan and enthusiast sites • Commercial sites (e.g., studio sites, video distributors) • Academic sites

7. Comedy & Community Critical/Scholarly Articles • Current • Historical • Found in: • Film studies & scholarly journals • Popular & fan journals and newspapers (but onlyoccasionally) • Web sites (even less occasionally…except for academic and commercial databases)

8. Comedy & Community Reviews: Current • Use: • Expanded Academic Index (fair amount of full-text) • News Index • ProQuest(some full-text) • Lexis/Nexis • Movie Review Query Engine (web: full-text) • Film Review Annual

9. Comedy & Community Reviews: Historical • Use: • Readers Guide • NY Times Index (or NYT Film Reviews 1913-68) (in MRC) • Film Review Index, 1882-1985 (in MRC) • Film Index International(CDROM in Main/Moffitt Only)

10. Scholarly/Critical Writing • Use: • Expanded Academic Index (1980-present) • Modern Language Assn. Bibliography (1963-present) • Film Index International (CD-ROM in Main and Moffitt) • Film Literature Index (Print Index in Media Center) (1977-present) • Art Abstracts ( & AA Retrospective) (1920s-present) • Periodicals Content Index (PCI)

11. Once You Find a Citation, How Do You Find the Article? Yo!…Hey man, use Pathfinder! • Or.. • Some indexes provide holdings info • Some indexes link to full-text • Satirist Nabs Movie Queen! John Waters takes all of Hollywood hostage in the jolly Cecil B. DeMented. (The Arts/Cinema)(Review) (movie review) Richard Corliss. • Time August 14, 2000 v156 i7 p70 • View text and retrieval choices (287 words)

12. Comedy & Community Books Use Pathfinder • Search by • Title and/or Subject Keyword • Director Name (as subject) • Movie Title(asTitle and/or • Subject Keyword)

13. How to Begin? Before you click: THINK • Formulate your search in terms of: • KEY WORDS andSYNOMYMS: • --Looks for words anywhere in record: title, subject, abstract and full-text (if avail) • PHRASES: • --Looks for words in the exact order entered

14. How to Begin? Before you click: THINK Formulate your search in terms of keyword and key phrases: Sex [women, love, relationships] and Death[dying, mortality, fate] in the films [cinema, movie*] of Woody Allen. The representation [reflect* portray*] of gender [sex*] and masculinity[masculin*, male, men] in the films films [cinema, movie*] of Jim Jarmusch. **** Truncation varies from db to db: * # ? emigra* = emigrant, emigrants, emigrate, emigration

15. Comedy & Community • http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/FilmBibMenu.html • a growing listing of bibliographies on various film topics and individual films compiled by MRC (includes bibs for genres, filmmakers, national cinemas, and individual film).

16. …being driven totally bananas by your research? Call me: Gary Handman 643-8566 ghandman@library.berkeley.edu