Transcript MAT208-IL - Mercer County Community College

MAT208 - Tools & Resources for
Finding Useful Info
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
September 2005
Agenda
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Finding books
Periodicals
Inter-library Loan: Getting things from other libraries
Review electronic searching
– Keywords, Boolean searching, truncations, & field limiters
• Accessing electronic databases from the library
• Printed indexes
• Searching the Web
– A few things to consider when using search engines
– The Invisible Web
– Thinking about the quality of the web info you find
Finding Books
Using The Card Catalog
•
The catalog is available online.
Used to find books, videos and
other material in the MCCC
collection (not periodicals).
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You will also find items available
at the Mercer County Public
(MCL) libraries.
•
You can request that materials
from MCL be brought to the
college. Deliveries arrive Tuesday
and Friday afternoons. (DVD’s not
available from MCL)
•
Link to the catalog is on the
library’s web pages.
Periodicals
• Periodicals include:
– scholarly journals
– newspapers
– magazines
• Periodicals represent the bulk of
published scholarly information.
• The library has a number of periodicals available in print, on
microfilm, and especially via electronic databases.
• The library staff can help determine if a specific periodical is
available from the library.
Following the citation trail…
• Most journal articles have a bibliography at the end
of them.
• This is a list of the books, articles, websites, etc. that
the author used in preparing the article
• These citations can be VERY helpful in your research.
Following the citation trail…
• Say you find a really great journal article
• Check out the citations at the end of the
article.
• The author of the article may have already
done some of your research for you!
• This list of items (focused on the topic of the
article) will likely have more useful things for
your research.
PANIC!
The library doesn’t have what I want!
OR
Using inter-library loan
to get needed materials
The MCCC library has many resources
available but…
• There will be times when the book or article
that you need is not in the MCCC collection.
• When this happens, you can use the library’s
inter-library loan (ILL) service.
• The MCCC library can get you practically any
resource that you need.
Three steps to finding materials that are
NOT in the MCCC Library’ collection
1.
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Search the Mercer County Public Library (do not
use for periodicals)
Search statewide on-line using JerseyCat
Have the MCCC library search worldwide for what
you need
Searching the Mercer County Public Library
• As mentioned previously, you can request materials
from MCL on-line through the catalog
• Materials from MCL arrive at the college on Tuesday
& Friday afternoons
So the Mercer County Public
Library doesn’t have what I want.
What’s my next step?
JerseyCat is the next step
• JerseyCat is a consortium of over 55 academic and
public libraries in New Jersey.
• JerseyCat is accessible via the world wide web.
• You can search the catalogs of participating
libraries and request the item right on line.
• You can search for both books and periodicals.
Link to JerseyCat appears in the left
column of all library webpages
You’ll be taken to the library’s ILL policy page,
click on JerseyCat link at bottom
Let’s look at JerseyCat
JerseyCat doesn’t have it either…
Now What!
Place an ILL request with the MCCC
Library
• In person at the library
– Fill out an ILL request form.
• On line
– http://www.mccc.edu/student_library_ill_form.shtml
So how long does will it be ‘til I get my
items?
• Generally it takes 2-3
weeks to get materials in.
• Often, items come in earlier
but we can’t guarantee
this.
• Extremely rare/unique
items can take longer.
Searching Electronic Databases
And The Web Too
Starting An Electronic Search
Keywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic databases and
web search engines
• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) that describes
or is commonly used when discussing your topic. For example:
– Ozone
– Layer
– Depletion
– Atmosphere
– Hole
Starting An Electronic Search
Boolean Searching/Logic
• Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with the
terms
– and
– not
– or
• For example
– eagles NOT football
– (car or automobile) and exhaust
• More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Phrases & Truncations
• To search for a phrase, use quotation marks
– “survival of the fittest”
• Truncations allow for searching related words
all at once
– The * is usually used. For example:
• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood,
childproof, etc.
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Field Limiters
• Database field limiters allow you to specify
your search within varied parameters for
example:
– Only full-text articles
– Only peer reviewed/scholarly journals
– Limit your search to just the titles, abstracts, the
full-text, etc. of an article
– Date (or date range)
Let’s take a quick look at how
Boolean searching can help
Electronic Databases at the
Mercer Library
Electronic Databases
In General
• Over 60 databases available
• Not every article is available full text though
many are
• Abstracts (summary) is often available when
full text is not
Electronic Databases
In General
• Accessible at any computer on
the MCCC/JKC campus network
• Most are available off campus,
need to request a password.
• Can print/e-mail/download
articles
Some of the databases
• EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier
– Broadest of the databases covering everything from science to the
humanities including many scholarly journals
– Not every article full text
– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
• Many are subject area specific:
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Business
Nursing
Criminal justice
Mortuary Science
More
Using the indexes
• Indexes help to supplement what is available
electronically
• These books list articles by subject in a given
year.
• They only list the citation for the articles.
• Helpful indexes:
– Applied Science & Technology
– General Science Index
• Indexes are available in the library
Searching the World Wide Web
How can I find what I want?
Some things to consider when
searching the web
• Everything is NOT on the web and may never
be
• No search engine covers the entire web
• The “invisible web” is huge!
• Though there has yet to be consensus,
estimates put the size of the invisible web
between 2 and 500 times bigger than the
“visible” (or surface) web.
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy
• Searching the Web is much like database searching:
– Use keywords and Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define
your search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also consider:
– Different search engines yield different results. You may
want to try using more that just your “regular” search
engine
– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select limiting
parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Engines & Meta Sites
• Become familiar with your search engines features:
– http://www.infopeople.org/search/chart.html
– http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/
– http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Searc
hEngines.html
• Meta search sites (like Ask Jeeves, Dogpile):
– Allow you to search more than one search engines at once.
– Can generate more “stuff” to sift through
– Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced search
features
– Some results can be from “paid for listing” search engines
Sample Web Search
• Search – "linear algebra" eigenvector* "search
engine"
• Try searching in:
– Google (note Google’s “cached” feature)
– Altavista
The Invisible Web
Why is so much being missed?
• When using a search engine, you are searching a
database that represents what is known to be on
the web
• Spiders or crawlers roam the web from link to link
generating this database
• Works extremely well for static all text pages in the
HTML language
• The problem arises when pages are ever changing
or not in HTML
So where is all of this stuff hiding?
• By far, a great amount is contained in
databases (both paid and free)
• Other places include:
– Non-text information such as photos or audio
– PDF formatted documents
– Very new web pages
– Password only access information
Finding the invisible stuff
• The key is knowing when you need “invisible”
information and then where to find it.
• Not every web search requires looking in the
invisible web.
• Search engines work best when looking for a
narrow, focused topic.
Some helpful invisible websites
• www.lii.org - searchable annotated directory of Internet
resources
• www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm - Direct Search, large
listing of free databases
• infomine.ucr.edu [NO www] - good for searching
academic information
• completeplanet.com [No www] blend of database,
directory, & search engine information.
• http://bubl.ac.uk/ - BUBL Link, listing of internet resources
covering “all academic subject areas”
• http://www.mccc.edu/~greenbay/ - The MAT 208 webpage
has a link to more resources
Let’s pause for a bit for some TV
Is this stuff
any good?
Evaluating Web Sites
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site provides
Five Evaluation Criteria
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Accuracy - is it reliable?
Authority - is author qualified on subject?
Objectivity - is the information biased?
Currency - is the information “new” enough?
Coverage - does the info completely cover the
topic?
Evaluating Web Sites
Home Page & Site Extensions
• Search engines may put you out of context, go to the
home page or “about us” page to help you evaluate the
site.
• The site extension can help evaluate information
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.gov - Governmental sites
.edu - Educational institution sites
.com - Commercial sites
.org - Not for profit organization sites
.mil - Military sites
Others are being creates that are less clear cut, e.g.: .net or
.co.uk
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of information…but
not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the
quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if the
quality of the info you find on the web is good