What you kind of materials you can find in the
catalog
Almost anything: music (scores and recordings), films, printed
material, electronic material including web pages and databases.
You can find almost anything except journal articles.
How to find material that you identify in the
catalog
Check status (checked out or not?)
Check location (floor, special area within the library?)
Write down the entire call number
Ask for assistance if you are coming up short
Constructing a search in the catalog
If you are looking for a known item you can do either an
author or a title search. For instance, you are looking
for Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics by Nancy
Felson-Rubin. You can do a title search with the title,
or an author search, last name first: Felson-Rubin Nancy.
These are “exact searches.†The computer wants the words
in the right order. If you are looking for words on a particular
topic you will do either a keyword or a subject search.
Subject searches are also exact searches. A keyword search
can be any combination of words of your choosing. You may
need to know how to do a Boolean search.
See the guide for constructing a Boolean search. You also
have a hand out.
http://www.lib.grin.edu/research/InstructionGuides/booleanmodule.html
An example of a simple keyword search: Penelope and
(weaving or male)
Library of Congress Subject Headings include:
Women in literature
Mythology, Greek, in literature
Weaving in literature
Women weavers
Gender identity in literature
Sex Role in literature
See the guide for working with keywords and subject headings:
http://www.lib.grin.edu/research/InstructionGuides/subjectkeywords.html
Reference Books
Reference books, located in the reference area of the first
floor, provide you with background information that can
be helpful in developing a topic or thesis statement. You’ll
find information about people, dates, events, statistics,
places, definitions, terms, and concepts—in all subject
areas. You may find these through our catalog, or better
yet, ask a reference librarian to help you identify useful
reference works in the subject area with which you are working.
Searching Online Databases
I’ll be showing you two databases—we have over 100 databases
that you can choose from.
See the guide for selecting databases:
http://www.lib.grin.edu/research/InstructionGuides/perdatabase.htm
Humanities Abstracts
Academic Search Premier
Another database to keep in mind for research in film and
literature is the MLA Bibliography
When using these databases, you may want to construct a
Boolean
search.
(See your handout—or the guide mentioned above). Humanities
Abstracts is a collection of between 400 and 500 academic
journals. Academic Search Premier includes many
weekly news and mass audience magazines as well as scholarly
journals. In all, it indexes over 3,000 journals in most
subject areas. You can limit your search to “academic journalsâ€
to make sure that you are finding articles in scholarly
journals. Both databases include access to online journals—but
some journals will only be available in paper--on our shelves
or through interlibrary loan.
You should consider limiting your search to words in subject
or words in abstract. When you conduct a keyword search
in a database, the author index is usually included in the
search. This could make the results of your search completely
irrelevant. (Try searching Penelope as a keyword).
When searching online databases to find journal articles
or chapters in books (depending on the database you use)
remember that you may be able to connect directly to the
article but it may be that that article is available only
in paper, or you may have to go through interlibrary loan.
Take advantage of help screens and browse subject heading
indexes.
Remember to carefully consider the quality of the article
you are selecting and its appropriateness for your topic.
You have a handout that gives a synopsis of what to look
for when evaluating your sources. A guide is also available
on the web: http://www.lib.grin.edu/research/InstructionGuides/evaluation1.html
There are many ins and outs to conducting research. We
can only dent the surface in a session like this. Please
take advantage of the Grinnell College reference librarians
and the assistance that they can offer you. We can be contacted
via email or phone, we have regular hours at the reference
desk, we can make appointments with you to meet at time
that fits into your schedule, you can drop by and meet with
us in our offices—there are many ways to make use of our
services.
Prepared by Rebecca Stuhr, Grinnell College Libraries. September
2005
stuhrr/x3674.
