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HIST 100 Stuff: Objects and Their (Hi)Stories (Spring 2023)

Try to figure out what went wrong

In your groups, look at the following search results and try to figure out what happened.

1) History of Possums

Like any normal person, I'm looking for peer reviewed articles about the history of possums.

I search possum as a keyword & history as a subject.

I limit my search to full text articles.

A search for History as a subject, and Possums as a Full Text search

So why did this non Possum related article come up in my results?

2) Fashion in Buffalo

TOPIC: I'm interested in the history of fashion in my hometown of Buffalo, NY.  I am especially interested in suits.

Why are the top three results coming up?

3) History of bicycles in the US

There are in fact 15 books Specifically on the subject of the history of bicycles in the US.

So why are their only 4 showing up here?

4) I just wanted history articles about parenting in the Atlantic World, why is the database swearing at me?

This really happened to me by accident while working with a class.

I wanted History articles about parenting practices in the Atlantic World.

I was in America: History & Life, so searched Atlantic AND Parenting.

So why did this article come up?

Search for Atlantic AND parenting inexplicably results in an article called "Go the F to sleep"