Check Off List What You Will Learn By the End of this Session

1
Check Off ListWhat You Will Learn By the End of
this Session

• How to Search CONSULS (The Connecticut State
  University Library System) for Journals, Books
  and other Materials.
• How to Search the ECSU Journal Locator
• How to Search CONSULS for Journals and Books
• Using Boolean Operators to conduct searches
• How to Read a CONSULS Record and Understand Where
  Materials are Located
• Where to Find Journals in the Library
• (Shelved Alphabetically by Title)
• Back Issues and Bound Volumes are found on the
  First Floor, Current Issues are found on the main
  floor or the 2nd floor
• How to Request Interlibrary Loan

2
Continued What You Will Learn By the End of this
Session

• How to Conduct a Search of the Librarys
  Databases
• How to Find Full Text Articles through EBSCO,
  JSTOR, ICONN and other Databases
• The Curriculum Center Web Site
• Locating Lesson Plans in ERIC and Other
  Databases as well as and on Internet Sites
• Physical Tour or Treasure Hunt
• 2nd Floor
• Reference Materials, Such as Readers Guide To
  Periodical Literature, Dictionaries,
  Encyclopedias, Latest Journals
• 3rd Floor, Professional Collection and Theory
  Books about Education
• 1st Floor Curriculum Center, Childrens
  Literature, Banned and Challenged Book
  Collection, Textbooks, Guides, Lesson Plan Books,
  Kit Room, Computer Lab with Software and Ellison
  Machines
• Bound Periodicals/Journals, microfiche/microfilm

3
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• My sentence to prepare for my keyword search
• I would like to find articles about different
  strategies used by teachers to provide reading
  instruction to children.

4
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• Designing a Keyword Search Statement for Finding
  Books and Articles in the J. Eugene Smith Library
• Clearly describe your search in one sentence
  using words and phrases that are in your
  vocabulary.
• Write the sentence down on paper.
• An example would be I want to locate books,
  journal articles, and other materials that talk
  about the different strategies used by teachers
  to teach reading to children.
• Identify key words and phrases from your sentence
  and underline them.
• I want to locate books, journal articles, and
  other materials that talk about the different
  strategies used by teachers to provide reading
  instruction to children.

5
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• List key concepts and make a list of any possible
  factors that may limit your search (e.g., peer
  reviewed journals, books written after 1999,
  etc.)
• Expand and broaden the key concepts by selecting
  synonyms for each concept. To do this you can use
  a thesaurus or the Library of Congress Subject
  Headings for help in finding synonyms.
• For example you can use
• Strategies, methods, approaches, techniques
• Reading, language arts, literacy
• youth, children

6
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• Identify the appropriate databases to search.
  For this search you may want to look at
  databases EBSCO Academic Search Premier, ERIC,
  ICONN, JSTOR, as well as others. If you are
  looking for books or non-print media then you
  need to use CONSULS/Online Catalog. If you are
  looking for websites then you need to go to an
  appropriate search engine such as, Google,
  Dogpile, Alta Vista, etc.
• Input your search statement into one of these
  databases. Use specific searching rules such as
  nesting words, using synonyms, search word
  connector commands such as and, or, and
  truncation.

7
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• Below in bold is a keyword search statement.
  Note that this search includes nested synonyms,
  search term connector command words AND, and
  OR and truncation You dont need to be this
  detailed!
• (strategies OR methods OR approaches OR
  techniques) AND (reading or language arts OR
  literacy) AND (preschool OR youth OR child)
• Just in case you did not know.
• (Nesting refers to grouping your synonyms into a
  parenthetical phrase connected with the search
  command word OR.
• By grouping your synonyms this way you are
  telling the database that what appears within the
  parentheses are various words describing one
  discreet concept.
• OR is a database keyword search command word
  that is used to connect synonyms in search
  statement. AND is a database keyword search
  command word that is used to connect your
  separate concepts.

8
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• The term truncation refers to the ability to
  search for common roots of search words. In the
  search example note that a search word has been
  cut off at the root.
• I want to locate books, journal articles, and
  other materials that talk about the different
  strategies used by teachers to provide reading
  instruction to preschool children.
• (strategies OR methods OR approaches OR
  techniques) AND (reading or language arts OR
  literacy) AND (preschool OR youth OR child)
• By truncating a word by using an asterisk () you
  are telling the database that you want all the
  words that begin with those specific letters.
  For example if you used the root child you
  would get a return of search results that include
  the following words child, children, etc. By
  typing in the word disab you would get return
  search results that include disabled,
  disability, disabilities,

9
Mini Lesson To Check Your Newly Acquired Skills

• In most databases the asterisk () is used to
  denote a truncation command. In some databases
  the pound sign () or the question mark (?) are
  used. For example
• disab
• disab
• disab?
• It is wise to check the Help Screen on each
  database if you have any questions.