Library Research Workshop

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We're a lot like Mr. Garrison's class, except we don't have a Mr. Hat. Image from South Park
We're a lot like Mr. Garrison's class, except we don't have a Mr. Hat. Image from South Park

[edit] KEY TERMS

  • Web - free, unvetted, online world we love
  • Deep web - the good stuff you pay for
  • Library database - scholarly information products/services hosted by brokers who buy content from academic publishers and sell it to libraries
  • Periodical - journal or magazine, serial publication
  • Article - a research paper or chapter draft written and published by a scholar; the unit of database content
  • Peer review - process to establish fairness and accuracy in academic publishing
  • Paid subscriptions - the college buys annual subscriptions to the databases librarians and faculty recommend
  • Physical collections - books, dvds, paper magazines, etc


[edit] Strategies for College Research

[edit] Step 1: Open a research log

  • Careful records are the foundation of any college research project
    • Word file
    • Blog post
    • Wiki page
    • Pen and paper
  • Annotate possible sources as you go
    • Save complete citation
    • Summarize, take notes, excerpt the ones that look good


[edit] Step 2: Web Search

  • Google - to get your bearings on organized presence online
  • Wikipedia - opportunity to add your research to web community
  • Other open web sources
    • .edu and .org domains are not as reliable as we once thought they were
    • .com and .gov are obviously self-interested
  • Wikimedia Commons - database of DRM free multimedia files


[edit] Step 3: Scholarly literature


ONLINE DATABASES - For off campus access, use your full name and A registration number, as they appear on your tuition bill, for your username and password.

  • Scholarly Literature
    • Proquest Direct - the Walmart of social science scholarship (Walmart in a good way), includes newspapers and health sciences
    • Ebscohost - best over all for social sciences, with ethnography, sociology, some arts
    • America: History and Life - authoritative collection for historical research on North America
    • JSTOR - Johns Hopkins publishers catalog, interdisciplinary content strong in the humanities
  • Multimedia
    • Accu Net - subscription database of copyright released news photos and other media
    • ARTSTOR - DRM encumbered images from the fine arts, available for educational fair use


TANGIBLE MATERIALS

  • Worldcat - on the front page, hyperbolically titled but still extemely useful library union catalog


[edit] Step 4: Close your research log

  • Save and organize your notes.
  • Back them up.
  • Print them and look them over.
  • Format and add them to your wiki pages.
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