You can use Zotero. It's free software that works with your browser to make tracking your sources and citing them later much easier. Check out the Libraries guide on using Zotero.
We need to consider all of the different search strings that would help us find books. For the searches conducted, OneSearch results will be pre-filtered for finding on books and eBooks.
⭐ Remember to consider multiple keyword searches:
What you see after searching is only a list of results. There is helpful information in the record that can make it easier to find more books on your topic. For example take the following title that appears in the search for japan trains history:
If you scroll down to the "Contents" section of the record, you will often (but not always) get a list of the book chapters. There is only particularly relevant chapter: Getting on a Train: Railway Passengers and the Growth of Train Travel in Meiji Japan; by N. Nakamura. This chapter has its own bibliography that leads to other helpful resources. One of them is the book The sound of the whistle : railroads and the state in Meiji Japan. By being proactive in our investigation, we can discover books we might otherwise never discover.
Other times, you may see other books that seem completely off topic in the search results like Tools for Japan: Three Epochs of Modern Education or The maker of modern Japan: the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu who most certainly did not live during the era or railway development. This is because the word "trains" like in the "Japan trains" search has multiple meanings; Instead of meaning railways, it means to improve at something. However, as with the example for The Historical Consumer we can't immediately dismiss a search result until we look more closely at the book's record.
Here is another book where looking at the full record can be very helpful:
The sound of the whistle : railroads and the state in Meiji Japan
by
For this book, if we scroll through the record, we will notice that unfortunately there is no "Content Notes" section. However, this is a section called "Subject Headings" that can be very helpful. This book happens to have only 2:
You'll notice that these are subject headings are linked. Any other book (and a few news and journal articles) in our collections that uses the same subject heading will appear when you click one. You will have to add the "book" and "eBook" filters again.
While these small amount of results may seem problematic, it's actually very helpful because it gives you a clear understanding of how many resources are available, at least in book format.
One trick is to alter the subject heading. Many subject headings will end in "History." Remove this and your results will increase a small amount:
While your search results remain small, you have a very clear set of books that are essential to your topic:
The Politics of Oligarchy
by
The books we've discovered through the strategies above is a solid starting place for researching the history of railways in Japan. There are few strategies to consider when working with these books:
