Uncovering Black Feminist Writers 1963–90: An Evaluation of Their Coverage in Research Tools

Conclusions

This study sought to determine the coverage of writings by forty black feminist writers within the primary electronic scholarly research tools available. The findings show that access to their writings is widely available and, while there are some issues with search interfaces, the overall scope of coverage is good; in some tools, the coverage is excellent.

Despite the lack of consistent terminology for searching these resources, the databases surveyed in this study show that a majority of the SW writers are adequately covered, but the coverage of pTW writers is uneven. The more prominent writers such as Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, and Nikki Giovanni do appear frequently. However, too often many of the pTW writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Ntozake Shange, Margaret Walker Alexander, and Terry McMillan were missing from databases that covered literature.

Eight of the twelve databases covered fifty percent or more of the writers. Most of the resources contained a variety of formats, including articles, reviews, and books, showing the variety of subjects covered by the writers. The accessibility varied, but most of the databases provided citations with links to further information such as abstracts and tables of contents for some items, and in many cases access was provided to article full texts. Some of the difficulties of searching could be reduced if databases would add either the initial or middle name of those writers with common names so finding their writings would be much easier and more accurate. The more realistic alternative is better indexing and good name authority records. In some cases, it was difficult to determine if the citations were books, book chapters, or articles, so the numbers listed should not be used as definitive numbers for the resources, especially since all of these resources continue to add new information daily.

Tables 3, 4, and 5 offer snapshots of the possibilities for discovering the broad spectrum of writings by this group of selected black feminist writers. Based on the results of this study, a similar survey of secondary article writings about the forty black feminist writers used in this study would be of benefit to black feminist researchers. Especially for those writers that were not covered as authors in the selected databases, further research to determine if their writings are referenced, cited, or reviewed would be of interest to researchers looking for the appropriate resources. Additionally, a study comparing black, Asian, and Hispanic feminist writers may provide insight into patterns of coverage for feminist writers in standard bibliographic databases.

This study affirms the previous studies by Mesplay, Krikos, and Sanguinetti that Women Studies Abstracts, now a part of the much larger Gender Studies Database, continues to offer the best overall coverage of black feminist writers thirteen years later. There are competitors of equal importance, such as the Black Studies Center, which continues to grow in content, and Periodicals Index Online, which provides a straightforward search interface that divides the results into useful categories and dates. There are now also a number of excellent women’s and feminist studies–specific resources—Black Women Writers, GenderWatch, Contemporary Women’s Issues and Women and Social Movements—available to researchers interested in black feminist writers.

Despite the coverage currently available, there is a need for the development of a comprehensive resource for indexing and abstracting black feminist writers. There are models of how to develop this type of resource, such as the European Women’s Thesaurus, which states succinctly on its introductory page why this type of resource is necessary: “With a professional thesaurus information can be made retrievable.”²⁰ The Women’s Thesaurus, edited by Mary Ellen S. Capek and published in 1987, is another model, but new terms such as womanism, womanist, liberatory feminist critique, and African Diaspora feminism should be added. A thesaurus that contained name authorities would be ideal because of the problems encountered searching for writers with common names where the writers does not use a middle initial, such as Barbara Smith, Valerie Smith, and Pat Parker. A name authority listing would also assist with writers such as Angela Davis and Margaret Walker, prominent writers in their own right, but there are two other writers with the same names who also write on feminist topics. The scholarly output of black feminist writers and the feminist movement in the United States in general could use an online version of a thesaurus similar to the Canadian Feminist Thesaurus, with links to the individual writers. The online environment is ideal for this sort of project. New technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networks offer a variety of options for such projects. Perhaps one of the women’s studies groups in the American Library Association would be willing to take on this project. It would provide a tremendous service to the study of feminist writings in particular and feminist studies in general.

As the distinguished scholar Barbara Christian states in her essay “The Race for Theory,” “I know from literary history that writing disappears unless there is a response to it.”²¹ While this study reveals an unevenness of coverage within some databases, it confirms that these black women writers are included in the leading databases so others can find them, cite them, and, more importantly, respond to their theories and scholarship, thereby enriching and acknowledging their important contribution to the canon of feminist studies.

Rebecca Hankins is Assistant Professor of Library Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. Submitted for review September 11, 2007; revised and accepted for publication March 12, 2008.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 270–286 © 2009 American Library Association. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for nonprofit, educational use.

References and Notes

1. Sherri L. Barnes, “Black American Feminisms: A Multidisciplinary Bibliography” (accessed June 29, 2007); “Voices from the Gaps” (accessed June 29, 2007).
2. Loretta P. Koch and Barbara G. Preece, “Table of Contents Services: Retrieving Women’s Studies Periodical Literature,” RQ 35 (Fall 1995): 76–86; Linda A. Krikos, “Women’s Studies Periodical Indexes: An In-depth Comparison,” Serials Review 20, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 65–78; Deborah Mesplay and Loretta Koch, “An Evaluation of Indexing Services for Women’s Studies Periodical Literature,” RQ 32 (Spring 1993): 405– 10; Kristin H. Gerhard et al., “Indexing Adequacy and Interdisciplinary Journals: The Case of Women’s Studies,” College & Research Libraries 54 (Spring 1993): 125– 35; Mary Alice Sanguinetti, “Indexing of Feminist Periodicals,” Serials Librarian (Summer 1984): 21–33.
3. Mesplay and Koch, “An Evaluation of Indexing Services for Women’s Studies Periodical Literature,” 409.
4. Krikos, “Women’s Studies Periodical Indexes,” 66.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 74.
7. Ibid. Unfortunately, Women’s Studies Index is only available as a computer disc under the title Women’s Studies on Disc, published by G. K. Hall; consequently, it is not accessible on the Internet.
8. Barbara J. Love, Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975 (Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Pr., 2006): xiii.
9. Joy James and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, The Black Feminist Reader (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell 2000): 262.
10. Benita Roth, Separate Roads to Feminism. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2004): 103.
11. James and Sharpley-Whiting, The Black Feminist Reader, 145.
12. Love, Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975, 27.
13. Yolanda Williams Page, ed., Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2007): 85.
14. Ibid., 273.
15. Love, Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975, 89.
16. Page, Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, 442.
17. LaJuan Evette Simpson, The Women on/of the Porch: Performative Space in African-American Women’s Fiction (PhD dissertation, Louisiana State University–Baton Rouge, 1999): 11.
18. ACRL/WSS Collection Development Resources (accessed July 18, 2007); UC Davis Gender and Women’s Studies (accessed July 17, 2007); Hope A. Olson, Information Sources in Women’s Studies and Feminism (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2002): 35–39; Nancy Northup, Texas A&M University, Evans Library’s Search Now, http://library.tamu.edu (accessed July 20, 2007).
19. Contemporary Women’s Issues (accessed Jan. 24, 2008).
20. Gusta Drenthe, European Women’s Thesaurus: A Structured List of Descriptors for Indexing and Retrieving Information in the Field of the Position of Women and Women’s Studies (Amsterdam: International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement, 1998): i.
21. Page, Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, 85.

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