If there is one area in the library in which one feels that a huge amount of information is within arm's reach, it is the Reference section. Here we will show you exactly what we mean by looking up a few works that should provide us with some useful information about the possible identities of the men in our portraits and then browsing the surrounding shelves for more.

Targeting a Resource in Reference

The library's Reference section offers a number of useful tools for quickly finding basic facts and getting started with research projects. For instance, Reference contains encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries, manuals, guides, collections of brief articles, and more. Since everything is arranged by call number, once you find one or two relevant works, you will likely find more close by on the shelves. Let's begin by searching the catalog for works on Egypt. For purposes of demonstration, we'll use Fondren library's online catalog WebCat, but a similar process will work at most other libraries. (If you want to learn more about using library catalogs, please visit our WebCat Module).

Our first step is to make sure that our search is limited to the Reference section. Look to the bottom of the Advanced Search page and you will see a series of text boxes. Location the one labeled location and highlight reference. It should look like this:

Then we need to specify what type of reference material we need. We will be searching by region. In the previous module on identifying the flags present in the Souvenir of Egypt, we learned that one of the most prominent flags was the Egyptian flag between 1914 and 1923. Of course, "Egypt" is also printed on the silk, so let's start our search for reference tools that country. .Our results have a variety of call numbers, but notice the similarity in those that seem most promising. It looks like DT in the 40's and 50's is our area. Through a similar process, we find that Britain is in DA around the 20'sItaly in the DG 450'sRussia in the DK30'sAnd France in the DC30's. They sound as if they are all within arm's length of each other. Let's have a look on the shelves.Our book on Egypt is not on the shelf. However just to the left we find in the DS section shelves and shelves of books on the Middle East and just to the right as many shelves on Africa, both of which should contain reference material on Egypt.Britain is well represented.As well as France. Nearly all of the works we need are within five feet of one another. In browsing between the sections we come across what would appear to be an invaluable resource for our project, Rules and Governments of the World. We need a a comprehensive list of the leaders of the world and the dates they held their positions, so this book seems to be perfect. Let's gather up the most promising works and get to work.

What do we know about this image from our research so far? The portrait sits beside what used to be the national flag of Egypt, originally the personal standard of Muhammad Ali, who led Egypt in the nineteenth century. We also know that the flag was officially in use there as a national flag from 1914 until 1923. Let's begin our search by finding out who was who in Egypt during that period and the surrounding years and see about locating any images of those figures there might be available. Considering the lack of specific reference material on Egypt during our period, let's cast a broader net and find Egypt in the context of the Modern Islamic World, our first regional encyclopedia.

Regional Encyclopedia

A regional encyclopedia contains a variety of statistical and historical information about a specific region of the world. It is usually categorized by subject or section of the region and is comprised of entries listed alphabetically within related subject sections. These books differ in their level of detail. For example, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World offers general information about Egypt, but lacks a listing of the country's leaders in the early twentieth century. Rather, the book focuses more broadly on many regions within the Islamic world over some 1500 years. For our purposes, this listing is lacking; there is no listing of Egypt's leadership during our period. This is probably because the Islamic World consists of many regions over some fifteen hundred years.

Let's get more specific. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa is an encyclopedia limited to the region of the Islamic World known as the Middle East.The table of contents reveals the diversity of the entries in the work from cultural subjects to countries.

Let's locate Egypt.The entry provides some historical information related to our project: "The French invasion of Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte and the short occupation (1798-1801) which followed exposed Egypt to Western ideas and technology (see Modern History). French withdrawal was followed by the foundation of a new dynasty under Muhammad 'Ali, an officer from Kavala in Macedonia who led Albanian soldiers to Egypt in the nominal service of the Ottomans. Muhammad 'Ali held power from 1805 until his death in 1849, establishing virtual independence from Istanbul and initiating a process of modernization which reached its peak during the period of rule of his grandson, Khedive Isma'il. A negative legacy of Muhammad 'Ali's successors, Sa'id and Isma'il, was to saddle Egypt with an unmanageable foreign debt. The debt led to assumption by Britain and France during the last quarter of the nineteenth century of a large degree of control over the economy. Isma'il was forced to abdicate in 1879; in 1882 British forces invaded Egypt to suppress a movement of opposition to the Khedive's rule and the growth of foreign control, led by an army officers, Ahmad 'Urabi. In one form or another British control continued until 1936, when an Anglo-Egyptian Treaty gave Egypt a limited independence. Full independence was only secured after the last of the dynasty founded by Muhammad 'Ali, King Faruq, was overthrown by the nationalist 'Free Officers' Movement.'" We have a few names that may be our man, Ahmad ‘Urabi and King Faruq. The others seem before our period. Let's try another encyclopedia.

The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East covers the same region, but may provide different results since it is focused on a specific period.And indeed, we have a few more potential matches: "Britain took virtual control of Egypt's finances and foreign affairs, and the real ruler was Britain's consul general. In response, a national movement emerged with the objective of achieving Egypt's independence. The struggle of Mustafa KAMIL, Muhammad FARID, and Sa'd ZAGHLUL achieved 1922. On 28 February, Britain's declaration terminated the protectorate (declared in October 1914), proclaimed Egypt a sovereign, independent kingdom, and reserved four issues for future negotiations: imperial communication, defense, minorities, and the Sudan. On 15 March 1922, Ahmad FU'AD was proclaimed king; a constitution was issued on 9 April 1923." Mustafa Kamil, Muhammad Farid, Sa’d Zaghlul and Amhad Fu’ad. Let's try a political dictionary we found.

Political Dictionary

A political dictionary offers an alphabetical listing of a variety of terms including proper names and the names of events related to the political history of a region. It is an invaluable resource for one researching a region of the world with which they are unfamiliar.

Our political dictionary focuses on the region at hand during the period we are focusing on: Political Dictionary of the Middle East in the 20th Century . Under the listing for Egypt we find a few more candidates: "On the eve of World War I, E. was, in international law, part of the Ottoman Empire, but actually ruled by the British. On 18 Dec. 1914, one month after war had been declared, Britain severed the formal link between E. and the Ottoman Empire and declared E. a British Protectorate. E. was promised that Britain would guide her toward self-rule and that the capitulationist would be abrogated at the end of the war. At the same time the British deposed the Khedive 'Abbas Hilmi and replaced him with his uncle, Hussein Kamel, giving him the title of Sultan (he died in 1917 and was succeeded by his brother, Ahmad Fu'ad.)‘Abbas Hilmi and Hussein Kamel.

Our regional encyclopedias and dictionaries are also good for identifying the role individuals played in its history, as you can see.

But we are provided with no pictures. At this point we have gathered enough information to move on to the next resource; we have names, but still no faces to match them to.

Hunting for the face with the name

Looking for an image, whether a photograph or a sketch or anything really, there is one online resource that is tough to beat: the Google image database. When you get to the homepage, just enter the full name of the person you would like to see an image of and Google will search through millions of images for a match.

Let's try a few of our names to see what faces come up. If you would like to take a look at our portrait for comparison click here, Face 1. Our search produces the following images for the names we've identified:

Mustafa Kamil at MUZonline Mohammad Farid at SIS, the Egyptian State Information Service,Sa'd Zaghlul at Al-Ahram Amhad Fu’ad at genealogia 'Abbas Hilmi at FirstWorldWar.com and Hussein Kamel at l'Egypte d'Antan.

It would seem that the mustachioed fez look was a popular one in early twentieth-century Egypt, but it also seems clear that Hussein Kamel's portrait comes the closest to our man. When we look to the details it is further confirmed. Notice the similarities in dress, particularly the sash, large button and medal combination in both images. It appears that we have identified the first face as Hussein Kamel, who we quickly discover in our encyclopedias was the Sultan of Egypt from 1914 until 1917.

What do we know about this portrait so far? It sits beside the national flag of the United Kingdom. Our loose dating of this piece is, for the moment, somewhere between 1915-1920. Face 1 turned our to be the Sultan of his region. Let's see who was on the throne or in power in the UK during our period. The first place to look for this kind of information is Who's Who.

Who's Who

Who's Who is an annual British publication by A & C Black of very short biographies of about 30,000 famous and/or important Britons, published since 1849. Their lists include political figures, judges and leaders as well as journalists, actors, lawyers, researchers, and artists. In the first few pages Who's who also lists a plethora of information about the United Kingdom in the year of that particular publication, including who is on the throne. Based on our library's holdings, as close as we can get to our period is either 1911 or 192. Let's overshoot first. The information on the Royal Family lists His Majesty King George V as being the king since 1910, placing him within our period.

Let's try to find out what he looks like.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is an illustrated collection of more than 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2001. If you have the name of the individual you are searching for information about (and not simply a picture and no identification) then this would be the place to start.

Under the alphabetically listed entry George V we find this face looking back at us.

We see similarities, but is it an exact match? Let's try an internet search for George V for a closer look. There is a close similarity in the eyes, part of hair and beard and mustache. Also there appears to be some consistency with the arrangement of and type of medals on his chest. It would appear that we have our Face 2, George V, King of the United Kingdom from 1910 until 1936.

What do we know about this portrait from our research so far? The Flag behind it was in use as the national flag of Italy from 1848 until the disagreement with Mexico over the rights to use the image of the Savoy shield beneath the crown, but that date is not given in any of our sources. We know, however, that the flag with just the Savoy shield was in use until 1946. So far we have found a King and a Sultan. Let's look to see who was the leading Italian leader in our period.

Regional Dictionary

A regional dictionary is similar to a regional encyclopedia and a political dictionary. The regional dictionary lists historically significant events and people alphabetically and provides short entries on each topic. The entries will be somewhat shorter than the regional encyclopedia and more oriented toward the terms one would come across in, say, a history book on the region. Here is a look at ours on Italy, Dictionary of Modern Italian History. The table of contents lists some interesting appendices; let's skip to them first.

The list of kings places Victor Emmanuel III directly in our period. In several sources, however, we can find no portraits of the former King. And so we must resort to an internet search for his image. We do not have to look very far for Victor Emmanuel III.And judging by the similarity of this image to our Face 3, we do not have to look further for the identity of our portrait. Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy from 1900 until 1946.

What do we know about this portrait so far from our research? The flag behind it belongs to Belgium and has been in use from 1913. So far we have discovered that our portraits belong to Kings and Sultans, so we can assume that the picture is of a prominent individual. Let's begin by locating a few general histories of Belgium.

General History Books

As one's exposure to a particular subject, increases one's interest tends to become more and more specific. Think of the intro classes you have taken in the past and the books you used with titles like this:

If you continued on in the subject then you will have noticed that the books you have used became more focused on particular aspects of it, such as this:The general work of history may not contain the specific types of information that one comes to study after spending some time in the subject area. However, they do all tend to contain some predictable information that can be crucial to your research, such as who was the King, Sultan or President in a given year, or what type of government is used in a particular region. Let's take a look at what the library catalog holds on the subject of Belgium. If you are unfamiliar with the catalog. please visit our WebCat module for a brief review. This information, although it may not be speaking directly about the holdings of the library at your university, should be helpful for finding resources in just about any university library.

Searching the catalog for general histories

Visit the basic search page for the catalog and enter the words "belgium" and "history", then select the subject search option, making sure you have selected the keyword, rather than browse option; this will focus you search on subject headings. Another option is to search by title with the name of your region after selecting the browse option; this will provide a list of titles you can scroll through that contain the word you entered. We are offered the following works:

Notice the similarity in call numbers. Let's just head over to the DH 520's and see what we can find there on the shelf. This title seems to be just the thing.A glance at the index informs us that the appendix section might hold just the information we need without necessitating our scanning the entire book. And sure enough we find a promising candidate: Albert I, king from 1909-1934.Albert I seems like he may be our man, but we are not provided with his picture in this book. Let's try online.And there he is, a match for our portrait. Albert I, the king of Belgium from 1900 until 1934.

What do we know about this portrait from our research so far? We know that we are looking for monarchs and presidents and that this flag was in use from 1799 until 1917 by "imperial" Russia, followed by its brief use during that year by a Russian "Republic." We found a few encyclopedias of Russia in our search for the flag, including one published by the Cambridge University Press. Let's begin there.

Cambridge University Press

Regional encyclopedias, as with political dictionaries and general histories, are typically comprised of general information. The more extensive the work, the more specific the information it will contain. However, the goal in publishing them is to present a set of standard information about a region in the most thorough and comprehensive way. Cambridge University Press is internationally famous for their works in this area.

As you can see from the table of contents to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia, the work is arranged to facilitate both the quick location of the information you need as well as the situating it in its historical context. Let's begin with the History section.

When we skip to the section on Imperial Russia, we notice that the information is presented chronologically, but divided by eras that are indicated by regime change, among other things. We soon locate what we are looking for.And we are also granted a portrait.A quick glance into a second encyclopedia, found next to the above on the shelf, the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union, reveals a smaller synopsis of the information with a sketch of a familiar face.It' safe to say that we have a pretty close match for our portrait: Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia from 1894 until 1917.

What do we know about this portrait from the research we have done so far? We know that the flag has been the national flag of France since 1848. Let's begin with a historical dictionary we discovered in the search for the flag.

Historical Dictionary

A historical dictionary resembles both the regional encyclopedia and the political dictionary in terms of its content. You will find it more broad in content than the political dictionary as it will include more cultural information. It is arranged alphabetically like the political dictionary, but presents information more in line with what you would find in the regional encyclopedia. Often with works such as these you can gauge the extent of their coverage by their length. The following selection is from a set of five volumes" Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870-1940.

We learn from the entry on Kings of France that there has not been one since the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth-century. Let's try Presidents. We find that "only two presidents in the Third Republic, Jules Grevy and Albert Lebrun (and Charles de Gaulle in the Fifth) were to seek and win reelection, Emile Loubert in 1906, Armand Fallieres in 1913, Raymond Poincare in 1920, and Gaston Doumerege in 1931 all resigned after a single term. >Here we have a short list to choose from with one particularly pertinent in terms of our period. Let's look up Raymond Poincare. We find that he was president from 1913-1920, but no picture. We have had great luck with our searches for portraits online. Let's see what we can find for our man.

Raymond Poincare, President of France from 1913 until 1920 and a very close match for our portrait.

Naming our portraited figures

Let's take a look at what we have concluded about the portraits in the Souvenir of Egypt

Face 1 is Husayn Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt from 1914 until 1917

Face 2 is George V, King of the United Kingdom from 1910 until 1936.

Face 3 is Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy from 1900 until 1946.

Face 4 is Albert I, the king of Belgium from 1900 until 1934.

Face 5 is Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia from 1894 until 1917.

Face 6 is Raymond Poincare, President of France from 1913 until 1920

Recall that we narrowed our period in the previous module at the end of the Dating our Flags section to 1917-1923. If our identifications above are correct, the short term of the Sultan of Egypt, 1914-1917 puts our period in the year 1917 itself. This information will come in very handy in our section on interpreting the meaning of the silk.