Gary Handman

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Its About Time Doing Research Online A Crash
Course
Gary Handman ghandman_at_library.berkeley.edu 643-856
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The point of all this...

• Describes organization of library information
• Introduce selected sources for finding books,
  journal articles, and visual resources online
• 2. Introduce a group of basic moves and features
  common to many online catalogs and indexes.

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The Information Universe
What Does It Contain?
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The Information Universe

• Books
• Journals (Magazines) Newspapers
• Government docs
• Maps
• Visual Resources (video, sound recording,
  photographs, etc.)
• Computer files (e.g. CD-ROMS, data files)
• Dissertations
• Manuscripts
• The Web?????

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The Information Universe
Why/when books? Why/when journals
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The Information Universe
The guy next to me is soooo hot!
But how do you find this stuff?
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The Information Universe
Library Catalog(s)
Journal/Newspaper Indexes
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The Information Universe
The Library's Catalogs
--Pathfinder --MELVYL (CDL cat)

• An inventory of what the library owns
• Search by Author, Title, Subject keywords
• Searchable by key words phrases

• Whole books and journals owned, NOT
  whats inside of those publications

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The Information Universe Books
Title The ecstasy of catastrophe a study of
apocalyptic narrative from Langland to
Milton Author Hendrix, Howard V., 1959-
  Published New York P. Lang, Date c1990.
Location(s) Main Stack   PR149.A74.H4 1990
Subject Headings English poetry -- Early
modern, 1500-1700 -- History and
criticism. English literature -- Middle English,
1100-1500 -- History and criticism. Apocalyptic
literature -- History and criticism.  Milton,
John, -- 1608-1674 -- Criticism and
interpretation.  Main Stack   PR149.A74.H4 1990
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The Information Universe Finding Articles

• Article Databases (Indexes/Abstracts)
• Databases produced by different commercial
  publishers often look/act differently from one
  another.
• Regularly updated
• Allow subject/author searching in a group of
  journals in a particular discipline or topical
  area.
• Some indexes also offer abstracts-- short
  description of article content

I know! Ill do my paper on Marilyn Manson!
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Choosing an Articles database (index)

• Look at the listings of article databases
  available via the library www.lib.berkeley.edu
  includes listings by SUBJECT, NAME, etc.
• Your research focus may require you to poke
  around in the literature of various disciplines.
• General Databases are often good places to start
  (particularly for newsy/topical issues)

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All databases are not created equal (or by the
same company)
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All databases are not created equal (or by the
same company)
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Online is Cool

• But Remember
• Not everything is online!!!!!
• Article Databases Generally only go back 10-20
  yrs online (some exceptions e.g. Historical
  Newspapers)
• Not every publication is indexed
• Fairly small (but rapidly growing) subset of the
  books and journal universe is currently available
  in full-text

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• Remember Also
• Not every topic has lots written about it,
  either in books or journal lit.
• --Research on very current topics
• --Research on radically specific topics
• --Research on topics off the beaten academic
  track or off the pop culture radar

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How to Begin? Before you click THINK

• Formulate a concise, concrete statement of the
  research problem
• Formulate your search in terms of
• keywords and key phrases

The impact of television advertising and
television violence on school performance and
pre-adolesecent social interaction.
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How to Begin? Before you click THINK

• Think of synonyms for key words/phrases

The impact of television advertising and
television violence on school performance and
pre-adolesecent social interaction.

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The Information Universe

• What to do if nothing is turning up
• Tweak your topic Broaden it / select a
  different angle
• Rethink your search strategy (new keywords, new
  concepts, etc.)
• Bail out completely and choose another topic

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A few cautionary words about research on the Net
Google Rocks!
The Net
LibraryLand
Scholar.google????
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Common Search Features --Save list of good
stuff --Mail Articles/Citations to yourself



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Connecting from off-campus
PROXY Server!
www.lib.berkeley.edu HELP Connecting from Off
Campus
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being driven over the edge by your
research? Call me Gary Handman 643-8566 ghandman_at_
library.berkeley.edu