Sarah Schwab - Section 4 (MWF 9:00-9:50)

Hi everyone! Here are my responses to the questions you submitted at the end of our library research class today. I'll do my best to explain things, but if you still have questions, please email me and/or post a comment below. -- Jamie Schmid (Your ENGL-190 Librarian)

"How do we cite when we use LexisNexis, etc.? Do we cite LexisNexis or the actual article or both?"

This is a good question! When you use an article you retrieved from a subscription database, you need to indicate that is where you got it. So your citation will include information about the article, as well as the database you retrieved it from. Purdue's OWL Writing Lab Web Site has a good example of this. Scroll down to the section titled, "An Article from an Electronic Subscription Service."

"Where do you have to go in the library to order a book from another library?"

You can initiate book order requests yourself from within the MOBIUS Library Catalog. Here are instructions on ordering books through MOBIUS. If a book you need isn't available at any MOBIUS libraries, you can place an Interlibrary Loan request, via the library's ILLiad service. You need to first set up a free account, but then you'll be able to fill out a "Request a Book" form and we'll get the book from another library for you. We'll email you at your SLU email account when it comes in and you can pick it up at the circulation desk on the 1st floor of Pius.

"Does the library have statistical books or studies from other universities?"

For higher education statistics, I'd recommend that you look at some of the resources listed on this Pius Library Higher Education Research Guide. There's a section on finding statistics. The National Center for Education Statistics site is also a good place to look. Another option would be to do search in the library catalog for: higher education and statistics. You could be more specific if you knew what kind of statistics you needed.

"Are there options for obtaining a bibliography of the article separate from the article page?"

Generally an article bibliography is listed at the end of the actual article. If the article isn't available, the bibliography wouldn't be available either. Does this answer your question? If I haven't understood your question correctly, please send me an email and let me know.

I'm still unclear on "what databases to look at."

Which databases you should search really depends on your research topic. However, there are a few standard databases that I recommend often.

For general topics/current events/etc. - Academic Search Premier, LexisNexis Academic
For health and medicine topics - MEDLINE
For education - ERIC (EBSCOhost), and Education Full Text
For literature - MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, Project Muse, Humanities Full Text
For history - Historical Abstracts, America: History & Life, JSTOR, Project Muse
For biology - Biological Abstracts
For psychology - PsycINFO
For religion/theology - ATLA Religion Database
For business - Business Source Premier, ABI Inform
For philosophy - Philosopher's Index
Social work - Social Work Abstracts
Sociology - Sociological Abstracts

I know that there are other disciplines I didn't cover, but I'm always happy to recommend databases for you to search if you let me know what you're working on!

I'm still unclear on "how to obtain an article from the library via email if it is unavailable to me."

If an article isn't available in print or electronically via SLU, you can place an Interlibrary Loan request for it via the library's ILLiad service. You'll need to set up an account and then fill out the "Request a Photocopy" form. We'll get the article for you from another library and email it to your SLU email account.

"I had a problem finding the floor of a book."

Our best guides for finding materials in the library are our Location Guide and our location links in the Library Catalog. (These are the links that say the name of the library which has the book.) The links in the library catalog will show you which floor the book is on and even the exact bookshelf you need to go to . If you still have questions, feel free to contact me or stop by the reference desk whenever you have trouble finding a book. We're happy to help!

"I was a little confused with checking the right journal locations and if those are the correct versions."

This can be a little confusing. Print journal records will indicate which library the journal is at, and if you click on the call number you can find the floor that it's located on, just like a book. As far as correct versions go, it's a matter of making sure that the library (or database) has the year or volume that you need. Looking closely at the dates before you go looking for the journal is important.

"When I go searching for electronic journals, it is still unclear where to go to get the article."

Was this an issue when you were looking for a specific article or articles on a topic?

When looking for a specific article and proceeding from the record for the electronic journal, you first need to select a database that has the full text of the year that you're looking for. Then within that database, you should be able to browse through a list of years, then volumes, then issues of the journal. When you get to the issue you're looking for, you'll be able to browse through a list of articles published in that issue and select the one you're looking for. If the database doesn't give you the option of browsing, you could search for the title of the article you need. A search box should be available then.

When using a database to find articles on a topic, if the HTML or PDF full text isn't available in the database, you can click on the FIND IT AT SLU button to see if it's available in another database or in print in the library. If it's available online, you can click on the "article" link that's listed. If it's not available, you can go to Step 2 to search and see if it's available in the library in print.

I hope that this was helpful for you. Please let me know if you have any other questions!