Transcript ENG 101 with invisib.. - Mercer County Community College

ENG 101
Finding Information
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– What’s a database?
– Databases available through Mercer Library
– Accessing the databases
• A few things to consider when using the
web
The Card Catalog
•
The catalog is available
online. Used to find books,
videos and other material
both in the MCCC
collection and the Mercer
County Public (MCL)
libraries.
•
You can have materials
from MCL brought to the
college. Deliveries arrive
Tuesday and Friday
afternoons. (DVD’s not
available from MCL)
Finding Books and other materials
• Unlike school and public libraries, the MCCC
uses the Library of Congress (LC) system.
• The LC is an alphanumeric system (e.g. PN
1991.2 .W65)
• You can search for materials by:
–
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Title
Author (last name first)
Subject
Keyword
Link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.
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 Lexis-Nexis) .
For example:
• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood,
childproof, etc.
Let’s take a quick look at how
Boolean searching can help
Electronic Databases at the
Mercer Library
What are electronic
databases?
• A collection of electronically searchable
information (frequently, but not limited
to, periodical articles) that is accessible
via the internet
• Access to this information is by
subscription only, paid by the library.
• It is accessible via the internet, but it is
not truly web information.
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
Broad/General Coverage Databases
• EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier
– Broadest of the databases covering everything from
science to the humanities
– includes both general interest & scholarly/professional
journals
– Not every article full text
– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
• Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) - News
– Large collection of newspaper information from around
the US, nearly all full text
More Databases
• A number of subject specific databases
are available covering:
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–
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business
art
architecture
criminal justice
education
mortuary science
more
• Many contain full-text articles
Even more databases
• New York Times Historical Newspaper – Articles from
1851 – 2002
• Literature Resource Center - Reviews, criticisms, and
biographical info on a number of authors and their works.
• AP Photo Archives - Photograph collection
• Biographies Plus - Biographical information of noted people
in a wide range of fields.
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• College Source Online - College catalog info (Only avail. At
W.W. Library)
Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Different publications targeted
to different audiences
Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Scholarly
• Purpose is to inform the
scholarly world of original
research in a given field
Popular/General Interest
• Purpose is to inform,
entertain and/or sell to a
wide audience
• Has a serious format
• Attractive/slick appearance
• Contains many graphs &
charts few photos
• Frequently uses photos and a
few graphs & charts
• Regularly uses footnotes
and bibliographies
• Rarely uses footnotes or
bibliographies
• Written by scholars or
researchers
• Written by staff or
freelance writers
Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Scholarly
• Uses the terminology and
jargon of the subject,
assumes reader knows it
Popular/General Interest
• Rarely uses subject
terminology or jargon, when
used, contains explanation
• Published by professional or
educational organizations
• Published by commercial
enterprises for profit
• Contains little if any
advertising
• Extensive inclusion of
advertisements
• Examples: Annals of
Microbiology, Journal of
Abnormal Psychology
• Examples: Newsweek, People,
Psychology Today
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 searches the
entire web
• The “invisible web” is huge!
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/Inter
net/SearchEngines.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
The Invisible Web
Why is so much being missed?
• Search engines use spiders/crawlers to gather
info about the web.
• This info is put into a huge database that is
commonly called a search engine.
• This method will miss some of what’s out there
• Most missed info in in a database
• The key is knowing “invisible”.
• Not every web search requires
looking in the invisible web.
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”
• www.firstgov.gov - search federal government sites
Evaluating Web
Information
Is this
stuff any
good?
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
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
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?
Search engines may put you out of context,
go the home page or the “about us” page to
help evaluate the site
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
Now let’s visit a site…