Books

Hello everyone! I know I've been missing for a while, but finals can make even the people with the most time into busy bees (sorry I couldn't think of a less cheesy way to say that lolz). Anyway, I went to Alexander and Kilmer libraries soon after my previous post, and checked out a bunch of books related to my thesis topic. As I am dong my thesis topic on BNP, and I don't know much about banking to begin with, my first essential is a dictionary of banking and finance terms. I found two of these: 

-Dictionary of Finance and Banking (Oxford Edition) (KIL HG151.D54 1997)

-Dictionary of Banking and Finance (Peter Collin Edition) (KIL HG151.C655 1999)

With dictionaries in hand, I am now ready to explore the rest of the literature I checked out of the libraries:

-"European Monetary Integration & Domestic Politics" By: Walsh (ALEX HG3943.W34 2000)

-"Comparative Financial Systems" By: Smith (KIL HG171.S59 1982)

-"London and Paris as International Financial Centres in the Twentieth Century" By: Cassis and Bussiere (ALEX HG3944.L66 2005)

-"Fundamentals of Development Finance" By: Richards (ALEX HG.4027.7.R5 1983)

-"Financial Innovation in the Banking Industry" By: Garland (ALEX HG4028.A84.02 2000)

-"Economics of Financial Institutions and Markets" By: Smith (KIL HG153.S53)

Looking at my schedule between now and when I leave for France, there is no way that I will be able to sit down and read all of these books. For that reason, I put up the call numbers of all the books I checked out. If I want to check these books out of the libraries again after I return, I can always check this page for the call number, and then check it out of the library again without searching too hard ^_^

Anecdote: 

Before I go to the library to check out books, I always write the call number of the books I want down on a little post-it. This way, when I get to the library, I can just go to the stacks and grab my book. The day I went to get my books, I went from my dorm to Alexander to Kilmer. When I finished up at Alexander, I could have sworn that I put my post-it back into my wallet, but when I got to Kilmer, it was nowhere to be found. Knowing a little bit about the Dewey Decimal System, I checked the numbers on the back of the books I got from Alexander, and went to the same numbers at Kilmer, and found books that I could use. This anecdote leads me to advice I would like to share:

Advice Tidbit:

Whenever I go to the stacks at the library, I always have the call number with me, but when I get to the location of my book, I don't just grab my book and leave. I look at the other books on the same shelf, sometimes looking at the shelves above and below where I got my book. This is a great way to check if there are any relevant books that you did not find via the library's catalog search. 

To do:

1. Add 5 sources to the literature review from Thesis seminar

2. Set up a concrete question

3. Start a rough outline about subtopics within the main topic

4. Research professors in France who can be secondary thesis advisors (may not be able to do this until I actually get to Paris)

5. Talk to Professor Lehne about a fellowship I'm applying to (that may change my thesis topic)

6. Apply for the fellowship

7. Get human subjects approval

8. Set up thesis blog