1. Using Digital Resources In or Out of a Library

2. Initial Search First decide what your topic is. Be sure that the topic is neither too broad, nor too narrow. One way to do this is to do a search of rersources available on the web. You could search your topis at www.google.com, and if there are very many sources, the topic is probably too broad. If, on the other hand, there are only a few sources, the topic may be too narrow.www.google.com

3. Topic Too Broad For example, if you decided to look for a topic that revealed over a million sources in www.google.com, the topic would probably be too broad. An example of this would be a search of the national hockey league.

4. Topic Too Narrow On the other hand, if you narrowed the topic too much and found only 2 sources of information, the topic might be too narrow.

5. Adding Concepts To Narrow A Topic If your topic is too broad, it has to be narrowed. To narrow a topic, you could add additional concepts to the original topic, thus restricting it.

6. Narrowing A Topic For example, if the original topic were the national hockey league, adding the concept of the collective bargaining agreement to the original topic would restrict it, narrow it. Depending on the results of the narrowed search, the topic might have to be further narrowed.

7. Academic Reference Databases In the actual research of a topic, it is usually better to devote yourself to academic databases made available to a person by a library. Citations in academic reference databases are more controlled than those cited in www.google.com.

8. WebPages In fact, anyone can create a web site, and those cited in www.google.com are not necessarily ones that can be believed or trusted in.

9. Judging Websites To judge the value of a webpage, there are certain guidelines that can be used to evaluate a source. 1. Who created the page? The author of the page should clearly be stated on the page. The author can be evaluated: who is it? What are his/her qualifications for the creation of the page? 2. When was the page last updated? A date should be present on a webpage. 3. Has the page been created by a commercial organization (.com), an organization (.org), an educational institution or a member associated with an educational instiutution (.edu), or a governmental agency (.gov)? Why was the page created?

10. Current? Next, you have to decide if your topic is limited to current information or not. Current information is contained in fairly current newspapers and magazines (journals); less current information can usually be found in books and older newspapers and magazines (journals)

11. Books To find books, you can use the library’s catalog (this used to be a card catalog, but now it is usually on the computer). Write down the call number of the item you find that may help you in obtaining information on your selected topic. Note: The call number is not logical to most people, whether the call number is mostly numbers (Dewey Decimal System) or a combination of letter and numbers (the Library of Congress Classification System). It is actually a location for the book.

12. Electronic Card Catalog An electronic card catalog allows the users to search in many ways, including by keyword (in the author, title, or subject field), author (usually last name, firsst name), title (or beginning of the title, excluting artciles such as “a” or “the”). Library book catalogs often have an advanced/guided search option also.

13. Electronic Card Catalog: An Example

14. Electronic Card Catalog: Advance/Command Search

15. Newspapers, Magazines (Journals) To find newspaper or magazine (journal) articles on your selected topic, you can use the reference databases available to you through the library. At this point, you must decide which database(s) to explore. Which database(s) are most likely to have information on the chosen topic?

16. Library Databases Each Library has different databases available. Review the list of available databases. Some may be very general, while others may be very specific. In general, they are searched in a similar manner.

17. Searching By Keyword Most databases have a search function that employs keywords. Remember, most databases at this point are not intelligent, and synonyms are not usually searched but must be searched independently.

18. Searching When looking at a database, there is often a guided search or advanced search which will allow you to search more specific topics by adding termds to narrow a search or relevant dates, etc.

19. Guided / Advanced Search Use guided (advanced) search whenever possible. The results will be more specific, and more related to your topic.

20. Full Text Databases Vs.. Indexes There might be two types of Library databases available: full text and indexes. A full text database leads the user to the entire article being cited. An index provides the user with an article’s bibliographic information; the entire article may or may not be in the Library.

21. A Full Text Database Though most full text databases are constructed similarly, some are very subject specific while others are very general. For example, Academic Search Premier ius very gerneral; Business Source Premier is very subject specific.

22. Determining The Appropriate Database Most searches should be begun in a general interest database, such as Academic Search Premier or Lexis-Nexis. After searching in a gereral interest database, proceeding to a more subject specific database is often essential depending on the project being researched.

23. Ask! If you do not know which databases are most general, ask! In addition, if you need help in determining which database may be subject specific to your chosen topic, ask! Furthermore, remember to ask for help whenever you need help!

24. An Example: Academic Search Premier

25. Advanced Search Options In Academic Search Premier's Advanced Search, there are three additional options: Apply additional terms to query Search within the full text of the articles Automatically "And" search terms NOTE: Other databases may have other options.