Teach
Yourself in 21 Days:
Effective information gathering and
research skills
Have you discovered
the series from Sams publishers entitled "Teach Yourself
- blank - in 21 Days?" The topics are
far ranging and the publisher guarantees to make the reader
proficient in 21 days if one follows the daily instruction and
exercises. Select a topic from the menu below and
follow the tutorials through their entirety. Or, simply
choose a topic which interests you.
In the bygone days of the 3x5 inch catalog card in wooden
catalog drawers one could only look things up by author, title or subject
heading. Often it was the Library of
Congress which assigned one or more subject headings to each new work it
cataloged. Unfortunately, a researcher could only guess at the appropriate
subject headings for the information sought. In today’s online library catalogs almost all significant
words in a catalog entry are indexed and searchable.
Suppose you were researching the training and experiences of
a beginning teacher, but had no idea of the relevant subject heading(s) for
this topic. Try a word search on beginning teacher in the Ashland
University catalog.
Click on Word search.
Type in the words beginning teacher. Fourteen records with the words beginning
and teacher or the phrase “beginning teacher” were retrieved (please note, as
records are added to the catalog, this number may change).
The first truncated entry (number
1) looks to be on target.
Click on the title of the first entry to display the full
record.
Note that “First Year
Teachers” is the subject heading assigned to the work.
Click on “First Year
Teachers” to retrieve the 25 titles in the AU catalog that has this subject
heading assigned to it.
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Day 2: Catalog searching
When the AU Library
Catalog does not suffice
The AU Library Catalog references about 300,000
volumes. The OhioLINK Library Catalog
references about 30,000,000 volumes and incorporates the holdings of 85
academic libraries in Ohio. You will
want to search the OhioLINK Library Catalog to expand most searches done in the
AU Library Catalog.
In Day 1 you discovered that AU had 22 titles under the
subject heading First Year Teachers.
Now we want to see how many titles are in the OhioLINK
catalog under the subject heading "First Year Teachers.
Click on First
Year Teachers. This will take you
to the all the entries in the AU catalog with First Years Teachers as a subject heading. In the upper right hand section of the screen
you will find a graphic button (look for a magnifying glass and the words
OhioLINK central). Click on this icon to
visit the OhioLINK catalog and view the 461 OhioLINK entries under First Year Teachers. 347 of these subject headings have
“subdivisions.” 114 records have no
subdivisions.
If you are
looking for case studies of first year teachers in Los
Angeles, then the subject heading listed under Num 9
is just for you.
What to do with all these 461 OhioLINK
entries? Two suggestions:
- Use
the sort button at the bottom of the screen to sort them by publication
date or choose a range of publication dates to view, e.g., 2000 thru
2005. Sorting records takes some
processing time. Be patient. Multiple clicks by impatient catalog users
are not helpful.
- Mark
the most appropriate entries and save them to disk or send them to an
email address. As an experiment
mark several records and send them to yourself.
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Day
Three: Catalog Searching
When the
OhioLINK catalog does not suffice
In day 1 we introduced the AU library catalog and found 22
records under the subject heading First
Year Teachers. In day 2 we found 433
records under First Year Teachers in
the OhioLINK catalog, a union catalog of 87 academic libraries in Ohio.
In day 3 we introduce WorldCat, an online catalog indexing 43
million records from over 5,000 participating libraries worldwide. Keep in mind the relative holdings of these three catalogs:
AU Library Catalog:
270,000 unique titles
OhioLINK Central Catalog:
9,000,000 unique titles
WorldCat: 53,000,000
unique titles
You will find a link to the WorldCat
from the Library Catalogs drop down box on the main library home page. Click on
WorldCat if searching from a campus computer or lick on WorldCat Off campus if
off campus There are three searh
options in the WorldCat:
basic, advanced and expert search
Click on Advance Search (because you want to do a keyword
search on a subject heading)
Enter First Year
Teachers as the search terms
Select Subject
from the drop down box at the right that shows Keyword as the default
Click on the Search
box
WorldCat will
retrieve 1,643 records having First Year
Teachers as a subject heading
Most of the hits are for books.
Note the other types of materials retrieved (visual, internet,
serials, sound and computer) Perform the search again,
but this time select "Thesis/Dissertations" from the
content area drop down box. Note that 730 thesis/dissertations
are available under the subject heading First Year Teachers.
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Day
Four: Catalog Searching
How do I get the
materials found through the AU Library Catalog, the OhioLINK Central Catalog
and WorldCat?
AU Library Catalog: Circulating materials are found on the
library shelves. Check the online
catalog first to see if they are available or if they have been checked out to
other users. The AU library circulation
policies are found under the “Services and Information” drop down box on the
library home page
OhioLINK
Catalog: If an item circulates from
the OhioLINK Central Catalog and if it
is not available at the AU Library, you may initiate a loan request from
your computer. OhioLINK items maybe
picked up and returned to Ashland,
or picked up and returned to any of the 85 participating OhioLINK
libraries. See the OhioLINK site for a
list of OhioLINK member libraries. The OhioLINK Library Loan Policies are also
found under the “Services and Information” drop down box on the library home
page. AU Library and OhioLINK Central items may be
renewed on line at the AU Library Catalog main page. You may also view the status of your OhioLINK
requests at this page.
WorldCat: If an item isn’t
available through the AU Library catalog or the OhioLINK Central Catalog,
doctoral students may submit an online
interlibrary loan request for
materials located in WorldCat. Paper interlibrary loan request forms are
also available at the circulation desk. Online interlibrary loan request forms
are to be used only for items not in the AU library Catalog or the OhioLINK
Central Catalog. The online interlibrary loan request forms
are found under the “Services and Information” drop down box on the library
home page
There is a hierarchy in the
request procedure as you may have noticed.
It’s not just an AU rule. It comes from the OhioLINK and American
Library Association’s interlibrary loan protocol to which all libraries
subscribe.
Do not use OhioLINK if the
AU Library Catalog meets your need.
Do not use WorldCat if
OhioLINK meets your need.
And remember it is the user’s responsibility to know when loans are due back, and
to know the conditions of the loan.
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Day Five:
Catalog Searching
Advanced Searching in
the OhioLINK Catalog
Boolean searching and truncation of search terms are useful
tools for limiting and expanding searches in information databases. They allow you to enter a number of terms in
one search rather than having to repeat the search multiple times for multiple
terms. Our library instruction team
calls this “one stop shopping.” In
day 5 we will apply these tools in the OhioLINK Catalog.
Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT) broaden or narrow a
search by defining the relationship between terms, or sets of terms. Truncation (usually with a wildcard such as
an asterisk) establishes a root word and retrieves all terms with the root word
imbedded. This will make much better sense when applied to an actual
search.
Go to the
OhioLINK Catalog
Select Advance Keyword Search
Note the examples of operators (boolean) and truncation
searching at the bottom of the screen. Note the importance of parentheses in
combining searches. Suppose we were interested in gender issues as applied to
educational leadership. We want to OR describing gender and then AND those results
with the term educational leadership.
There are many ways to do this. Try this search strategy.
Truncate the words
sex* and femin* (to pick up feminine and feminist and feminists)
Use OR to combine your truncated hits with male, female and
gender)
Use the Boolean operator AND to combine the hits retrieved
with the term educational leadership
Hits based on search strategy are returned. Each record highlights your search terms in red.
Now beings the intellectual work of evaluating the results and the
usefulness of your search strategy. You
will want to try different terms and combinations to see if the hits improve.
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Day
Six: Catalog Searching
Limiting, sorting and storing search results
When working with a large cataloging database, it is helpful
to be able to manipulate your results to make them more user friendly. The AU Library Catalog, the OhioLINKCatalog
and WorldCat all permit limiting, sorting and storing of search results.
Let’s see how this works in the OhioLINK Catalog. Enter an advanced
search on “educational leadership” in the OhioLINK Catalog.
Enter the keywords educational leadership in the
search box and you will retrieve 1,798 hits.
Notice the limit and sort options at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the Material
Type drop down box and select PERIODICAL/SER
and resubmit the search (search box is above the option boxes) and you will
retrieve 29 periodical or serial records that pertain to educational leadership
Or select THESIS/DISS
from the Material Type drop down box
to retrieve 581 thesis or dissertations that pertain to educational
leadership. You could further limit the
results by asking for any of the 581 THESIS/DISS items held at Ashland
University. Note that the LOCATION drop down box permits limiting the search to individual
OhioLINK libraries.
The default sort of OhioLINK records is by date. You may overrule the default by selecting
either alphabetical or relevancy in the Search
and Sort drop down box
Now how about saving the results of your search for future
use? At any point in your search you may
“mark” a record by clicking the “mark” box. Once a record has been “marked” it may be
viewed, emailed, printed or stored to disk.
Important reminder: Once you “mark”
one or more records on a page you need to “save
marked record” before moving onto another screen. If you don’t save, information from earlier
page views will be lost. After the record(s) has been saved, it can be viewed
and then emailed, printed or stored electronically.
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Day Seven:
Catalog Searching
The Library of Congress
Classification scheme
Almost all academic libraries use the
Library of Congress Classification Scheme to determine the call number for a
library item. Unlike the Dewey
Classification Scheme used in most public and K-12 libraries, The Library of
Congress (LC) system beings with letters of the alphabet. The Library of
Congress uses “L” to classify most items dealing with education. However materials relevant to your research
will be found throughout the A-Z classification scheme.
For an overview of the Library of Congress Classification
Scheme go the AU Library Catalog and select LC Call
Number box. You may now enter a full
or truncated LC (Library of Congress) call number. At the bottom of the screen note the following option: For a subject guide to the LC (Library of
Congress) classification system click here
. Click on “L – Education” to see an
outline of the classification scheme for “L”.
The actual detailed scheme is 361 pages long.
The Instructional Resource
Center web page has a useful guide
to the Library of Congress Classification scheme, click
here to view.
A primary goal of any classification scheme is to put
similar items as close together as possible on the shelf. However it is often the case that a variety
of LC call numbers are used to shelve seemingly similar items. Once you find an appropriate LC call number,
don’t forget to check the “subject heading(s) associated with a particularly
appropriate item to locate other appropriate materials shelved elsewhere by the
Library of Congress Classification Scheme.
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Day Eight: Research
Databases
Just what is a research
database?
A research database is a sophisticated tool to search, sort,
prioritize, display and print citations to intellectual content and, in some
cases, the full text of the content referenced. A research database uses the
same sorts of algorithms used in online library catalogs to retrieve citations
by author, title, keyword and other useful indicators.
Research databases are purchased by libraries for authorized
library users. In most cases a research
database is sold by a commercial vendor.
When accessed from off campus you will have to complete an "authentication”
process to verify that you are a member of the AU community and an authorized
user of the research database.
Research databases are not search engines like Yahoo or
Google. They may use a search strategy
similar to Yahoo or Google, but they do not go beyond their own boundaries in
searching for relevant material.
Although one uses a web browser to view a research database,
a search engine like Yahoo or Google will not reveal its contents. The proprietary information in a research
database is typically not in the public domain.
Therefore, the content of a research database is thought of as residing on
the “invisible” or the “hidden” web.
Research databases that contain the complete or partial
full-text of materials cited are identified as “full-text” databases.
Links to our research databases are found on the library
home page under the drop down box labeled "Research Databases”. Select
“alphabetical listing of all databases” for a complete listing. (Click
here to view the alphabetical listing directly.) Note that the column labeled Off-Campus indicates if the title is available from off
campus. Click on “yes” or “click here”
to get the necessary remote authentication screen.
Typically one thinks of research databases for journal and
periodical content. OhioLINK also uses
research databases for other formats. The
“Research Databases” drop down box offers a link to “OhioLINK databases by type”
Here will be found research databases
for e-books, reference works, books, images and even bird calls in the OhioLink
digital media center.
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Day
Nine: Research Databases
The OhioLINK
research database interface
Ashland University has more than 170
research databases available thru the library home page. Imagine the frustration if you had to learn
the workings of a different interface for each of them. Fortunately many of our databases reside
either at OhioLINK or Ebsco sites which provide uniform
interfaces and searching routines regardless of the content or the original
supplier of the database.
Today we will look at the OhioLINK interface. You will
recognize the interface by its blue and grey background and by the familiar OhioLINK Research Databases banner at
the top of each screen. The interface will remain the same as you switch
from one OhioLINK database to another. For example click on:
Education Abstracts
ERIC
PsycINFO
Each of these databases began life as a unique product with
a distinct interface. OhioLINK now has rights
to display these and other databases in a uniform interface using common search
techniques. You may notice some
variations depending on the features a particular database offers. ERIC and PsycINFO, for instance, offer a
thesaurus which in not available from other database publishers.
Let’s perform a keyword search in Education Abstracts. Enter “beginning teachers” as a phrase and examine the
results. Note that 434 entries are retrieved.
Had we searched for “first year teachers” as a subject we would have retrieved 1,075 records. The tips on online catalog searching apply
equally well to research database searching.
Note also that limiting and sorting apply as they do in online
catalogs. The “find a copy” link will take you to either the full text on line or
the libraries having a paper copy of the title.
The "attached full text” link
will take you immediately to the full text online.
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Day
Ten: Research Databases
The EBSCO
Research Database Interface
The Elton B. Stevens Company (EBSCO) was founded sixty years
ago to sell magazines. Today it is a well known serials subscription agent and
provider of on line research databases. It
is under a statewide contract to provide its databases to all libraries in Ohio;
public, K-12 and academic. It services Ohio
academic libraries thru a relationship with OhioLINK and uses the OhioLINK
system for off-campus (remote) authentication.
In day 9 we
introduced you to the “blue and grey” OhioLINK interface. Today we introduce you to the “blue and
green” interface with the familiar “EBSCO HOST Research Databases” banner at
the top of most screens. On the Ashland Library home page find the drop down box for
“Full-text Resources.”Select either “EbscoHOST Databases” or “EbscoHOST
(Off-Campus)” You will be directed to a list of available EBSCO Databases,
select “Academic Search Premier” to view the Ebsco interface.
Enter first
year teachers in the Find: box, and
search these words in the default fields.
502 hits (or more) will be returned. Click
on “Find a copy” to see if full text
is available or to find the libraries holding subscriptions to the relevant
journal title. The full text might also
be available immediately as “HTML Full
Text” or “PDF Full Text.” You
could limit your search to full-text only and peer reviewed articles to
retrieves a smaller number of hits. Note
other ways to qualify and limit your search at the bottom of the search screen.
The EBSCO option of limiting results only to those articles
available in full text is both pleasing and tempting. Doctoral researchers should be sure to
consider all relevant articles in their literature review even if not available
online in full text. You might consider
using the full-text only option with caution.
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Day
Eleven: Research Databases
The OhioLINK
Electronic Journal Collection (EJC)
OhioLINK launched the Electronic Journal Center, a
collection of full-text research journals, in 1998. The EJC contains more than
5,700 scholarly journal titles from 70+ publishers across a wide range of
disciplines. More than 3.8 million articles are downloaded each year from the
EJC, with a total of more than 10.9 million articles downloaded since its
inception.
These scholarly journals may also
be available through the OhioLINK and EBSCO databases introduced in day 9 and
10. Nevertheless, the EJC is the largest database of
scholarly journal titles and all of
the articles referenced are available in full text. Note that the journals are also listed by Subject.
and that “Education” is a subset under the Subject “Social
Sciences” Note that in the “advance” search you may limit your results
to only those journals identified on the “social sciences” list. (click on advanced to display the advanced screen)
The Electronic Journal Collection targets scholarly journals
and all titles in the collection are likely to be considered peer-reviewed. The
list of publishers participating in the Electronic Journal Collection is
substantial. Keep in mind that all articles from all journals listed will
be available in full text and in PDF format (requiring Adobe Acrobat)
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Day Twelve:
Research Databases
So many databases,
so little time
So now you know about the approximately 170 research
databases accessible through the AU library. You understand that most of them are
subscription based and use is restricted to the AU community. Therefore a
remote authentication step is required for off-campus use. You recall that most of the intellectual
content in the research databases is not accessible thru Google. You are convinced that research databases are
a primary tool for your doctoral program research. So you ask, “which of the 170 are the best
suited for my research?
Our librarians have made an educated guess as to which
databases are most applicable to research done in the College
of Education. At the main library home
page you will find a listing for “Research
Databases” The drop down box permits you to select “Education and Sports Sciences Databases.” Here you will find a subset of databases highly relevant to
educational topics. Perhaps the three most frequently and successfully searched
are:
ERIC (Learn more
about ERIC)
* Note: As of 12/03, the ERIC database has changed,
click
here for updates.
Education Abstracts (Learn more
about Education
Abstracts)
Professional Development Collection (Learn
more about the
Professional Development Collection)
OhioLINK provides for “subject
clustering” so that searches may be run in multiple databases at the same time. Experiment with the “education subject cluster” at the OhioLINK main page http://www.ohiolink.edu/ Select “Subject
Cluster Search” from the drop down box at the left. Enter “adaptive technology” as a sample search.
Note that the hits are listed chronologically and limited to the first 50 from
any database. Nevertheless this is a
quick way to determine how the various databases handle a particular search
term.
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Day
Thirteen: Research Databases
Dissertation
Abstracts and Digital Dissertations
Even in the early stages of your
doctoral work you will be giving serious thought to the doctoral
dissertation. The premier database for
doctoral dissertations is Dissertations
Abstracts. Digital Dissertations is a subset of the most current years of
Dissertations Abstracts in an online environment. You may visit the Digital Dissertations web
site for a complete product description
Digital Dissertations is also available from the research
databases page on the library’s home page.
It’s available from either the complete alphabetical list or from the
list of “Education and Sport Sciences
Databases – Multidisciplinary Databases.” As with most databases, off-campus use requires an authentication process. YES, this is the
database to look up the doctoral dissertation topics of your AU faculty! You may also browse the 453,929 dissertations already
submitted in the “education” category
Dissertations completed at Ashland University are shelved on
the 2nd floor of the library; bound in black and shelved
chronologically first and then by last name. Some members of earlier cohorts have allowed us to display
the “literature review” section of their dissertations on the “Doctoral
Research in Education” page under section IX
Literature Reviews
The search screen of Digital Dissertations provides a link
to Current Research @.
Browse the list of institutions and select Ashland University. Here you will
find a search dialog box to display AU doctoral dissertations submitted to Digital
Dissertations. To retrieve all Ashland dissertations enter sc(0462) in the Submit Query box .
This is the school code (sc) for Ashland University.
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Day
Fourteen: Research Databases
The
I.S.I. Citation Database
ISI Citation Databases are
multidisciplinary databases of bibliographic information gathered from about
8,000 scholarly journals. Although concentrated in the physical and biological
sciences, the social sciences set of journals is valuable for educational
research. The databases are unique in
that they point to other writers who have cited the articles indexed. If a known author or article is particularly
relevant to your research, it is important to know who has cited this author
and/or particular work. Only the I.S.I.
(Institute for Scientific Information) citation databases can do this.
It is not the easiest database to
use, but it offers a unique way to find articles very similar to each other. As you know, research databases are
accessible from the drop down box selections under “Research Databases” on the
library home page. The interface to the
I.S.I Citation Databases (a.k.a. I.S.I. Web of Scsience), looks like this:
click
here.
Suppose you wanted to explore the work that Dr. Jane Piirto has
done on postmodern curriculum theory as it pertains to gifted and talented
students. Select Easy Search – Click
on Social Sciences Citation Index – Click on the “Person” icon box and --
enter Piirto J* in the “Person Search”
box One of the titles retrieved
is Implications of postmodern curriculum
theory for the education of the talented.
Note the following: The Piirto article has 97 references in its
bibliography, and it has been cited in three other articles. Information about the full text of the
article is found by clicking on the OLinks button at the top. The purple “FIND
RELATED RECORDS” displays a list of articles which include one or more
of the references used in the Piirto article. Articles that share the largest
number of sources with the original article are listed first. One could assume that articles at the top of
the “FIND RELATED RECORDS” list will have much in common with the original
author’s work, even if they don’t come to the same conclusions. And that is
where the interesting analysis begins.
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Day Fifteen: Research
Databases
The
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Database
ERIC is the keystone database for educational research. It incorporates more journals and more
research documents than any of the other databases designated as Education and
Sport Sciences Databases on the library’s Research Databases page. It is provided free of charge by the US Department
of Education. OhioLINK provides the
interface for this database.
The OhioLINK interface to ERIC looks like the interface to
other OhioLINK databases and is found through the Research Databases Menu on
the library’s main page. Proficient users of ERIC understand that it is
helpful to review the “About This Database” link at the right hand of the
initial screen and using
the thesaurus will lead to
better search results. The
thesaurus is automatically searched unless turned off by the user by
clicking the thesaurus box which removes the check mark. Searching the term “first year teachers”
as a key word pulls up a useful thesaurus entry.
Knowing when to “expand” or “focus”
will lead to better search results. You
will be creating and using “sets” to refine or expand your search. Each
record has an accession number. If it
begins with EJ the record pertains to a journal article. If it begins with ED the record pertains
to a “document.” You can limit
searches to either “journals only” or “documents only. Remember that "find
a copy" links take you to full-text or locations for journal articles
and/or information about obtaining documents. Lastly, the
browsing options at the right of the main search screen provide useful
entry points into the database.
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Day
Sixteen: General Resources
Help! I need
some help.
Help tutorials, help screens and frequently asked questions
(FAQs) exist for almost all of the electronic resources you have been
introduced to. Be certain to read these
documents to improve your research experience.
The online help editors try to anticipate typical frustrations and offer
suggestions for improving your search results.
Here are some “help” offerings you should be familiar with:
AU
Library help page: details how to find help in the library.
AU catalog
help: (found at the lower right hand corner
of the main screen)
OhioLINK catalog: “Search
Tips” found as an icon at the top of OhioLINK online catalog search screens.
Note that the content on the search tip
screen changes relative to where you are in the search process. This is known as context-specific help.
The OhioLINK databases: context-specific help is found at the “help”
link at the right hand side of each screen.
The Electronic Journal Collection (EJC): Each screen has a “help” button at the
top. Clicking on “help” leads to useful
“Guides and Documentation”
EBSCO database has a “database help” link below the database
title on the main screen. See for example:
Professional Development Collection.
Chat with a Librarian. You will find a graphic link to OhioLINK’s Chat with a Librarian at the end of each
Research Databases list from the
library home page and from the OhioLINK databases themselves. When you click on this icon a librarian
within the OhioLINK system will be paged and you will be invited into a chat
style reference interview. Additional information on chat may be accessed directly
from the library
help page.
Telephone a Librarian. Call the reference desk at Ashland
University (419-289-5402) and one
of our reference librarians will be happy to offer assistance and/or help you
resolve issues over the phone. Remember,
you may call or visit your library mentor to discuss your
research questions. Students and assigned
mentors are listed on the doctoral page, to view the listing
click
here.
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Day Seventeen: General
Resources
Examples of Qualitative
and Quantitative Research
Doctoral research frequently uses
qualitative and quantitative research methods.
You will want to familiarize yourself with these research skills find quality
examples of both. Some suggestions:
- Search the AU library catalog and the OhioLINK catalog using the subject term Education
– Research or Social Sciences –
Research
- AU library catalog (sort by year) on the subject Education – Research
- Remember to click on the “OhioLINK Central” icon to run the
same search in the OhioLINK catalog.
- Use the term “qualitative” or “quantitative” as a key word
in the title when searching Education databases such as ERIC, Education
Abstracts and Professional Development Collection.
- Google Searching:
Searching on the terms “qualitative research” or “quantitative research”
or “qualitative educational research” or “quantitative educational research”
will retrieve useful links including: Qualitative Research Journals
and Qualitative Research Subject Guides -- both
examples from Saint Louis University
The following journals have been identified by faculty as
scholarly publishers of quantitative research. Click on the title to see AU
holdings and/or links to online holdings:
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Day Eighteen:
General Resources
The American
Psychological Association (APA) Style Manual
As a member of an earlier cohort mentioned at your
orientation dinner, the APA Style Manual will become a familiar companion
on your way toward the doctoral degree. Of course you should buy the latest edition for your
personal use. In addition there are
other study guides to the APA Style
Manual in bookstores and on the internet.
Here are some tips for locating
APA information:
AU Library
has copies of APA Style for reference and circulating
use (please note the various locations of the texts within the
library):
Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association | BF76.7 .P83 2001
Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association | BF76.7 .P82 1994
Important: Be advised that the technical reader of your dissertation is
the ultimate authority on the APA Style Manual and its usage.
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Day Nineteen: General
Resources
To Google or not to Google?
The Web facilitates a whole new
dimension of information gathering.
Search engines like Google bring some semblance of order to the
staggering amount of data available from billions of web pages. A typical student will volunteer that Google
or a similar search engine is the first place one begins research on a college
assignment. This is not necessarily a
good thing!
Yes, you should certainly “Google,” but remember that most scholarly research in not indexed
by commercial search engines. Scholarly
research that is indexed by a search
engine is usually hard to distinguish for the huge number of hits retrieved in
a keyword search. Compare a search on
“first year teachers” in Google
with a similar search in Education Abstracts. Most likely our research databases will
provide scholarly publications and a search engine will yield anecdotal and
secondary information pertinent to your research. Google is helpful in identifying sites associated
with a pertinent author. For example,
the author of the first citation retrieved in a search on “first year teachers”
in Education Abstracts is Naama Saber. A
Google search on “Naama Saber” in Google produces her homepage and other
information. (Note: always use
quotation marks in a personal name to guarantee sensible and manageable
results. Quotation marks in Google cause multiple words to be searched as single term and not as separate
words.)
In 2005 Goggle introduced
its beta version of Google
Scholar. We invite your attention to a
press
release from OhioLINK on how OhioLINK users can put Google
Scholar to the best advantage.
Subject Guides:
The authors of library web pages use search engines to
gather resources useful to researchers in various disciplines. Below are samples of “Subject Guides” in
Education found through a Google search on “subject guides” and “library” and
“education” You might find it helpful to begin you own “bookmark” list
of useful resources. See your web
browser help screens for information on bookmarking.
Recommended
University Web Sites:
Ashland University
Baylor University
Boston
University
Bradley University
Brandeis University
CSU—Sacramento
University of Delaware
University of Kentucky
University of Northern Florida
Kansas State
University
Kent
State University
King College
Louisiana
State University
CSU Stanislaus
University of California
at Santa Barbara
University of Vermont
University of Houston
University of Texas
at Austin
Other Web sites:
Internet Public Library
Librarians Index to the Internet
Education Virtual Library
Educators
Reference Desk
How do I site web sites and other electronic resources using
APA?
See the APA
web site for electronic resources
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Day
Twenty: General Resources
News Groups
and List Servs
If your life is already too
complicated and your email box is too full each morning, read no further; close
down this lesson and put news groups and listservs on the back burner for
awhile. But, if you believe that even “a
blind old sow can find a fresh piece of corn if she digs thru the garbage long
enough” read on. There may be some gems
buried in these oceans of conversation know as news groups or listservs. (no
final “e” in listserv)
What’s the difference between a news group and a
listserv? In a news group discussions
are posted on a bulletin board which you choose to visit from time to
time. In a listserv the discussion
comes to you through your email.
News Groups: Google acquired Usenet, one of the largest
news group providers, in 2001 and has made posting to news groups and viewing
their archives one of Google’s services.
When using “Google Groups” you
are not searching the “web” but you are using the internet to search postings
in Usenet discussion forums.
Try a search on “first year teachers” in “Google Groups”
Eventually you may find a news group of particular interest
to monitor on a regular basis, or you may want to register with Google to post
new messages or respond to existing ones.
Listservs: Listservs are created in order to gather like
minded people together for information sharing.
You may contribute to a listserv or simply monitor postings to it.
The number of subscribers to particular listservs is both
large and small. A listserv administered
through Barry University
and devoted to issues of Educational Leadership has five subscribers. Note that this is an email address and not a
URL. One accesses Listservs through
email, not a web browser.
CataList provides
a catalog of nearly 70,000 public listservs. Searching “First Year Teachers” in CataList produces one hit.
Follow and SAVE instructions from the listserv on how to
post and remove yourself from a listserv which may no longer be of
interest.
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Day Twenty One: Final Thoughts
Graduation
Day
If you look back you will see that the lessons of past 20
days have been equally divided among Library Catalog resources, Research
Database resources and General (mostly Internet) resources. You will use all three in your doctoral
research. Scholarly monographs,
periodicals and web resources can now be found in abundance.
Before the internet and web access to resources the typical
student complaint was “there isn’t anything written on my topic.” (or more accurately stated “I don’t have the
tools to identify and retrieve relevant information.”) In today’s online environment the opposite
is often heard; “I don’t know what to do with all this data I’ve retrieved.”
We think the latter situation is preferable. Networking and professional interaction is
most likely the best way to deal with the “information overload”
situation. Use conversations with your colleagues,
professors and librarians to evaluate the resources you have gathered. Use listservs and news groups to
network. Call or email the professional
associations involved in areas of your research. They should be able to put you in touch with
others working in your field. Use the
internet to find contact information for prominent authors in your area of
interest and email them. Use Google to
“Ask a Question.” However, one should treat most “pay for the
answer” services on the internet with caution.
Chat with a librarian at OhioLINK.
Use any of the “help” tools offered from the
AU Library homepage. All of the about require the human touch and
a willingness to take a chance and be bold.
My staff and I and especially your library mentor
wish you every success in your doctoral journey.
Bill
Weiss, Library Director
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