Transcript eng102 cult-identity..

ENG 102
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?
– Accessing the databases
– Databases available through Mercer Library
• Web Information
– Searching
– The Invisible Web
– Evaluating what you find
Using 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)
•
Link to the catalog is on
the library’s web pages.
The 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.
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Field Limiters
• Field limiters allow you to specify your
search within varied parameters for
example:
– Only full-text articles
– Only peer reviewed publications
– 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
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
Some Useful 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
• Ethnic NewsWatch
– A collection of “newspapers, magazines and journals of the
ethnic, minority and native press”
– Available in English and Spanish
• Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) - News
– Large collection of newspaper information from around the US
and the world mostly in full text
Subject Specific Databases
• A number of subject specific databases
are available covering:
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–
–
–
–
–
–
business
art
architecture
criminal justice
education
mortuary science
more
• Many contain full-text articles
Non-periodical Databases..
• 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)
Searching the World Wide Web
and Evaluating What You Find
Brought to you by…
&
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/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
Sample Web Search
• Topic - Censorship in the field of Radio,
NOT Television
• Try search 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”
• www.firstgov.gov - search federal government sites
Is this
stuff any
good?
Evaluating Web Sites
Now Back to Our
“Sponsors”
&
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. Accuracy - is it reliable?
2. Authority - is author qualified on
subject?
3. Objectivity - is the information biased?
4. Currency - is the information “new”
enough?
5. 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
Evaluating Web Sites
Other Considerations
• Watch for information that is
positioned to sell you something.
• Altered web pages (either by accident
or maliciously)
• Links to other web sites DOES NOT
necessarily mean that the site is
credible. Evaluate each site separately.
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…