At first glance, I thought this assignment would be much more simple than it turned out to be.  My efforts, findings, and frustration are listed below.

1) An op-ed on a labor dispute involving public school teachers from before 1970

I began my search for this topic on JSTOR in the Advanced Search section.  I searched: teacher labor ~dispute AND public school, Narrow by –> Publication date –> To: 1970, Sort by: Relevance.

The search provided an overwhelming number of items. Many of the items came from publications such as law review, education reviews, education committees, or were summaries rather than op-ed pieces.  I had trouble figuring out if there was a way to narrow down the results to solely op-ed pieces, but found no clear answer.  Putting “Op-ed” in the search box left me with only one result.  I further adjusted the search through NARROW SEARCH BY DISCIPLINE AND/OR PUBLICATION TITLE: Education (only).  I received better results than I did previously, but still had to filter through the results to find what I was looking for.

An example of an item I found which satisfied the search was Albert Shenker’s 1969 piece “The Real Meaning of the New York City Teacher’s Strike.”  Shenker is a former school teacher who addresses his thoughts and criticism over the issue of “decentralization” of schools in New York.  He mentions specifically teacher strikes in 1958 and 1967 primarily over race and ethnicity.

2) The first documented use of solar power in the United States

I found this search to be the most challenging.  I started on JSTOR by searching “solar power” AND “United Sates,” narrow by oldest to newest.  After searching through pages and pages, I found very little.  I decided to do a Google search to get an idea of the time frame I should be looking for, and found 1904 to be a promising date.  I narrowed the search to start at 1850, and still found very little.  The only thing I really found was talk of solar research, no definite use of solar power in the United States.

Next I browsed ProQuest Historical Newspapers.  “First solar power use” came up as an  associated search.  Again, I sorted from oldest to newest.  I also narrowed the document type to include only articles, front page/cover stories, and general information. This time I found something! An article from 1903 from the Chicago Tribune entitled “Power From the Light of the Sun.” Which mentioned the success of a solar powered motor in Boston.

3) The best resource for the history of California ballot initiatives, including voting data

I found some results in ProGuest Statistical Insight by searching “California ballot initiatives.” I also narrowed it to list only results involving “California.” The California Office of the Secretary of State yielded the most valid results.  However, it did not provide the full document for viewing.

Searching the same under Books/Media on the GMU Library’s website yielded less promising results.

Next I browsed the databases by subject.  Govsearch looked promising, but the search boxes were not user friendly in terms of doing a basic search, and the specifics did not seem to fit what I wanted to search for.

Lastly, I browsed LexisNexis State Capital, which looked promising, but the database was currently unavailable. A problem I have run into several times while doing research for this course.

(Assignment given by Dan Cohen, Professor at George Mason University, Fall 2011)