Matt Schultz - ENGL190 Section 23 - Fall 2010

Hi everyone! Here are my responses to the questions you submitted at the end of our library research class on Tuesday. 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)

"Do we just go to the front desk to pick up books that we ordered?"

Yes! When a book comes in for you, you'll receive an email at your SLU email account and you can pick it up at the Circulation Desk near the entrance of the library.

"What are the library's hours?"

Pius Library's hours can be found on the library Web site. We're once again open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.

I'm still unclear on "what all of the numbers and letters in the call number mean."

This How to Read Call Numbers in an Academic Library web page has a good explanation of what the different parts of a call number mean/represent. Really, though, you don't need to memorize this. You only need to be able to look up materials in the catalog, find their call numbers, and then find them on the shelf.

"I may have trouble finding books in the future."

If you have trouble finding books in the future, please ask for help at the Pius Library Reference Desk on the 1st floor of the library. We'll be happy to help you!

"I wish we would have gotten a tour."

I'm sorry about this. Your instructor and I thought it would be best to give you more time to work in the library classroom on your own research and skip the tour. I'd be happy to show you around the library sometime though. Please email me at schmidj@slu.edu or call me at 977-3591 and we can set up a time.

I have a question about "where everything is. I have a pink sheet that will help, but where sections are."

This online tour of the library is a little out of date (especially the section about the 3rd floor), but it will still help you get a sense of where things are in the library. If there's a particular section that you're looking for, you can consult this guide to Library of Congress subjects and then consult the Pius Library location guide to see where materials in a particular subject area are located.

I'm still unclear on "which search guide or database to use for my topic (Adonis and American Youth). Also, scholarly articles - which ones are and aren't."

I'd recommend that you search for articles in Academic Search Premier. I found some good articles by searching for "adonis complex." You could also try searching for the following: body image and men, or self-esteem and men. You can always add the keywords America or United States and Youth or Teenagers or Young Adults if you're getting a lot of results. You may also want to look at this book.

"The only questions that might pop us are about locating some materials like plays or musical scores."

To find music scores in the library, you can perform an advanced search and limit your search by material type to "music scores." See example. Plays can be found in the library catalog by just doing a title search, just as you would for a book. I don't think there's any way to limit your results to only plays. If you're looking for any plays, you could just do a keyword search for "plays" or include an author's name in your search - for example "Tennessee Williams and plays."

I'm still unclear on "the ability to narrow down an article's subject field to what is absolutely relevant to my topic."

To narrow a search you have several options. You can include additional or more specific keywords in your search that will help you hone in on your topic. For example, instead of searching for "videogames", you could search for "videogames and violence and teenagers." Another option would be to limit your search by publication date or type. Different databases and library catalogs will give you different options for limiting your searches. Please keep in mind that this is something you'll want to do when your searches are getting many results. If you aren't getting very many results, you'll need to broaden your search.

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