Sarah Schwab - Section 15 (MWF 1:10-2:00 p.m.)

Hi everyone! Here are my responses to the questions you submitted at the end of our library research class on Friday. 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 to you find out which libraries have documents you're looking for?"

To find out which libraries have a book you're looking for, you'll first need to search the SLU Libraries Catalog (includes SLU Libraries), then the MOBIUS Library Catalog (includes academic libraries in Missouri and a couple of public libraries). If you don't find what you're looking for in MOBIUS, you can place an Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad) request for the book. You don't need to know where it's available. Library staff will look that up for you. If you want to look this up yourself, you could use the database WorldCat, which is a national library catalog.

When looking for a specific article, search the SLU Libraries Catalog to see if the SLU Libraries have the article in print or online. If it's not available via SLU, you'll want to submit an Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad) request for a photocopy. Again, you don't need to know which libraries have the article. We'll look that up for you. If you wanted to see if a particular journal was available in a MOBIUS library, you could look that up using the MOBIUS Library Catalog.

"The only part I got confused on was about ordering the article online..."

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. If you access Interlibrary Loan via a database, as we did in class, you won't even have to fill in the "Request a Photocopy" form. That will happen automatically.

"Are there other resources besides the education databases that would work well (for this assignment)?"

It really depends on what you're researching. Your best bet is to think about your topic and then try to figure our which scholarly disciplines would be most interested in your topic. From there, you can select databases that are geared toward those disciplines.

These 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!

"How do you renew library books?"

As long as your library books aren't already overdue, you can renew them online. Here are instructions for you.

Login to My Library Account. (There's a link to this on the SLU Libraries home page.) Click on "Checked Out Items." Renew selected items by placing a check in the box next to items on the list and clicking on "Renew Selected" OR click on "Renew All" to renew everything you have checked out.

Note: Items that other patrons have placed on hold and items with restricted loans cannot be renewed; a system message will tell you that renewal is not possible.

If your library books are already overdue and you'd like to renew them, please call the Pius Library Circulation Desk at 977-3087.

"How do you best search databases for info?"

I'd recommend that you think about the main concepts of your research topic and write them down. Then below each concept, write down synonyms and similar keywords and concepts. You can then use these keywords when you search databases for articles. The most important thing is to be flexible! If you try one search and you don't get any results, try something else. The research process involves a lot of trial and error. Also, if you need advice about a specific search strategy, please email me. I'd be happy to help you!

I'm unclear on "sifting through and modifying searches in databases."

Evaluating your search results will take a little patience. To make this process easier, pay close attention to the subjects/descriptors that describe the articles and the article abstracts (or summaries). They will help you ascertain whether or not specific articles would be appropriate for your research project.

In class on Friday we talked about ways to narrow your searches in Academic Search Premier and Lexis Nexis Academic. These databases give you the option to narrow your results by type of source, publication, subject, publication date, etc. This is something you'll want to do if you have a lot of results. If your search doesn't return many results, go back to the main search screen and try using different, fewer, or broader keywords.

I hope this post helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions. I'm happy to help you!