Project Writing and Research E-Textbook: Basic Research

Introduction

This module will help you with some basic research strategies so that you can get going with your research for English 102. You'll learn more in-depth strategies throughout this class, but once you master the basics, you'll have the critical tools needed for academic research.

Most people equate the library with books, and sometimes with magazines and journals. In this module we'll focus on these resources. Although searching the web is perhaps easier and definitely more familiar, you can't rely on it alone for your academic research. Most of the books and many of the articles you will need for university projects will be in the Albertsons Library online and print collections, which include thousands of periodicals, over half a million books, and millions of microforms, government publications, videos, DVDs, CDs, and audio cassettes. That sounds like a lot doesn't it?  To help find resources associated with your topic, the library has many different databases. The databases might focus on a subject area (psychology) or a type of material (newspapers), or they might cover many subjects and many formats.

In this module, we'll look at how to put these databases to work for you in order to locate books and articles for your English 102 research.

By the end of this module, you will be able to search for and locate books and articles from Albertsons Library related to your research topic.

Searching for Books

Books are a great place to start your research. They can help you to define your topic--for instance, if you're interested in the Iraq War, you can find a book on it and then skim the table of contents, the introduction, and the index for ideas for something more focused. They can also help you gather background information.

In the library world, a database that searches for books, videos, and periodicals in a specific collection is called a catalog. Our catalog, WorldCat Discovery, does even more than the usual catalog. Besides including items like books and videos that are in the Albertsons Library collection, WorldCat Discovery includes items in other library collections as well. This makes it a powerful discovery tool. To access WorldCat Discovery, go to the library home page, click the "Books, videos and more" box at the center of the page, and enter your keywords in the WorldCat Discovery search box.

Remember when you're using books in your research that you don't have to read the whole book. You can skim various sections and just use the introduction or a single chapter if necessary.

The following video covers the basics of finding books. Remember to ask for help if you get stuck!  

Locating a Book by Call Number

A search for items in WorldCat Discovery will provide you with a call number, the floor the book is located on, and a status code (not checked out, checked out mo/day/yr). So how do you use this info to get the actual book?

In locating materials in the library, it is important to understand how these items are organized and shelved. Albertsons Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system to organize materials. In general, books in the library are shelved by SUBJECT. What this means is that once you identify one book of interest for your topic, you should be able to locate other books related to your topic on the shelves next to it. Books in most libraries are shelved by their CALL NUMBERS.

IF your book's call number does not have a prefix (such as ref or McCain), the book will be shelved in alphanumeric order (letters first, then numbers, then a letter, then a decimal number, etc.) on the floor indicated. IF your book has a prefix, the book will be shelved in alphanumeric order within the collection indicated by the prefix:

• ref stands for reference on the 1st floor;  
• McCain is a room on the 2nd floor where items focusing on western life subject areas are located).

If you ever have trouble locating a book by call number, just contact the reference desk on the first floor.

Video 

Watch the video below to see how to search for a book in the Albertsons Library.

Direct link to the video: https://boisestate.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=205927b3-d114-4b31-b40d-ab9601420b4b

This part of the lesson focuses on searching for articles that have been published in magazines, journals or newspapers. We'll cover this type of search in an article database called Academic Search Premier.

 An article database provides information about where and when the article was published and is searchable by keywords, subjects and authors. Since articles tend to be much more specific in their coverage of a topic, your search can also be more specific. We'll cover ideas for narrowing your search so that you can find the most relevant articles for your topic. As with most searching, this takes some trial and error.

As students at Boise State University, you have access to all the content to which the Library subscribes. And that is a LOT! Some article databases provide the full-text of the article as well as the citation, but finding the full-text of an article often takes an additional step or two.

To help you identify what is available in full text, most databases have a "Find it" button that takes the information about what article you want and searches all the library's databases to locate the full text of your article. The button looks like one of these, depending on which database you're using:

 or  

IMPORTANT! The "Find it" button may link you to the full-text article in another database or on the publisher's website.  If no electronic access is available for the article, you can usually obtain the article by doing an interlibrary loan request which takes only 1-3 days.

Video - Article Search in Academic Search Premier

Watch the video below to learn how to do an article search in a database.

Direct link to the video: https://boisestate.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=64a34e38-dcc1-4c6b-b72e-ab9601420b51

When searching for articles and there is no html or PDF link available, click on the Find It button to locate access for the resources you need.  It's in almost every database including Google Scholar!

Watch the video below to learn more about the Find It button.

Direct link to the video: https://boisestate.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c4f7cbba-5ee9-4dc2-bb62-ab9601420b4a