LIS4060 Notes Week  4

Jing - Free Screen Capture Software 

Supplementary Notes on Readings

What follows below are some miscellaneous notes on some of this week's readings.

Indexes (C&H, ch.8)

Databases have become so comprehensive that they nearly always contain full text, or at least link out to other databases that contain full text.

What to do when you can't find the full text:

Ulrichsweb -  See the "Other Editions / Formats" tab for this serial. It tells "online availability", just in case your library doesn't subscribe to any full text resources for a particular title. The "Abstracting" tab shows resources that provide indexing and abstracting access. 

Use an OpenURL Resolver. At DU, we use SerialsSolutions Article Linker (the vendor now calls this 360 Search, although we still refer to it original name, "Article Linker"). http://libguides.du.edu/EjournalFinder - you can browse journals by title, or search for a citation using the "Citation Linker" feature.

Google Scholar - If you know the exact title of a scholarly journal article, search for it enclosed in quotes. Keep in mind that Scholar overlooks non-scholarly serials and newspapers.

Examples of Index-only resources at DU's Main Library:

• Alternative Press Index
• C19, the Nineteenth Century Index
• MLA International Bibliography

Health, Law, and Business (C&H, ch.9)

Medical Reference - currency is an issue (does the user want the most up-to-date information?) General rule of thumb: you are a librarian; don't dispense medical advice. Medical reference is highly structured - it has to be! You need to be familiar with MeSH

• PubMed

Legal Reference - jurisdiction is an issue (what entity has jurisdiction in the matter at hand? a city government, a state government, a country, etc.) General rule of thumb: you are a librarian; don't dispense legal advice. Legal reference is also highly structures. You need to be familiar with various West publications. These publications use

Business Reference - availability of data and other info is an issue (is the info likely to be a guarded secret, or is it generally available?)

Maps (C&H, ch.10)

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS): http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online: http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/

Biography (C&H, ch.11)

Who's Who vs. Who Was Who Note that these are both published in London. 

See the DU Library database category: Biography

*****

Social Sciences Research (Keeran, ch. 4)

Qualitative Research

• PsycInfo
• Sociological Abstracts
• ERIC

Quantitative Research

• ICPSR Direct: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research

Case Studies

• Some databases can restrict to case studies, qualitative studies, or quantitative studies as genres: PsycInfo

 Major Social Science Databases:

• PsycInfo
• Sociological Abstracts
• ERIC [CSA]; freely available ERIC

Business Research (Keeran, ch. 5)

Company

Public company info - easy to find data via SEC filings (EDGAR); but even though a company is public, you still cannot find everything.

• Database: SEC EDGAR Database {freely available)
• Fee Databases: Standard & Poor's Net Advantage, Value Line Investment Survey, Hoover's Online

Private company info - some databases have info ("guestimates") on selected private companies. Otherwise, not so much info

• Database: Hoover's Online

Use directories to find info (online directories include ValueLine, Standard & Poors NetAdvantage, Mergent)

Industry Research

Here is where you need to know your codes: SIC, NAICS

Industry info also available from databases listed above

Market Research

You are lucky if you find freely available market research reports. Generally these are very expensive.

Economic Research

Lots of free info here, because published by governments (US, state, local).

Reference Collection Building

Criteria for inclusion in reference: 

1. Does it show marks of permanence rather than transitoriness?

2. Is it a tool that, if checked out, would hinder info discovery?

3. Is it show a single perspective, or a breadth of perspectives? What is the authority of the author(s)?

4. Does it contain bibliographic references?

5. What reference function does it serve? Examples:

• Overview/guidebook/handbook
• Bibliography/index
• Chronology/Listing
• Biography
• Comprehensive lookup resource

Let's look at a specific title and see if we should include it in the Reference Collection

Immigration and illegal aliens : burden or blessing?

Nine chapters of prosaic text by a single author. Shows one person's perspective.

Part of Information Plus Reference Series. "The purpose of each volume of the series is to present the latest facts on a topic of pressing concern in modern American life. These topics include today's most controversial and most studied social issues: abortion, capital punishment, care of senior citizens, crime, the environment, health care, immigration, minorities, national security, social welfare, women, youth, and many more. Although written especially for the high school and undergraduate student, this series is an excellent resource for anyone in need of factual information on current affairs."

APPENDIX I. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BROCHURE: FEDERAL PROTECTIONS AGAINST NATIONAL ORIGIN DISCRIMINATION ...135 [which is also otherwise available in our catalog]

APPENDIX II. MAPS OF THE WORLD ...139 [also available in many other places - not a unique addition to a reference collection]

IMPORTANT NAMES AND ADDRESSES ...147 [could be helpful, but less than 2 pages]

Most of the Information Plus Reference Series, which is part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library, I would not to place this in a reference collection. But others would. What do you think?

Government Documents Reference

Depository Libraries: http://catalog.gpo.gov/fdlpdir/FDLPdir.jsp

General:

Catalog of Government Publications (CGP): http://catalog.gpo.gov/. Most depository libraries incorporate catalog records into their online catalogs. But the CGP is a comprehensive source of all GPO-created records from July 1976 onward, and some works before then.

Google - do a domain limit for gov as the top-level domain (TLD):

site:gov "upper colorado river basin compact"

site:gov airport security checkpoints

site:state.gov travel restrictions

site:state.co.us aspen economic conditions

Legislative Research:

GPO Access: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/. is on its way out. Nearly all GPO Access content has been migrated to FDsys: http://www.fdsys.gov/
FDsys has documents of Congress, executive publications such as the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Public Laws, Budget of the United States, etc.

 

Statistics -

Statistical Abstract of the United States: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

Fedstats: http://www.fedstats.gov/

Reference Ethics

1. Confidentiality - keep patron information and questions confidential

2. Neutrality - all points of view

3. Equality of Service - no discrimination

4. Intellectual Freedom - no censorship

5. Excellence - always refining our skills

The Syntax of Searching

Boolean Logic, Boolean Operators

British-born mathematician George Boole (1815-1864)

AND: narrowing operator

OR: broadening operator

NOT: negating operator: USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION

Wikipedia on Boolean Logic

This is a most interesting entry. Read it!

Boolean logic, when applied to language, can seem strange at first.

Patron's request: I am looking for information about birds in Idaho and Montana.

If you started searching databases this way, you would not get desired results:

birds AND (idaho AND montana)

Even though the requested information was for information concerning Idaho AND Montana, to find the information you must search for Idaho OR Montana.

birds AND (idaho OR montana)

In-class Exercises:

1. Is the AND operator required for a keyword search in the catalog?

2. a) Do a Prospector search for materials containing elephants, pigs, and giraffes. b) Do a search with pigs or horses. c)

Now add elephants and giraffes to the search.

3. Is the AND operator the default for keyword searching in Business Source Complete ? How can you prove this.

Proximity & Precedence Operators: for controlling proximity and order of words

Note: Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are more universally accepted in database searching than are proximity operators. In other words, you probably should read the HELP pages of a database to see what the proximity operators would be, if any. However, here are some proximity operators that are used in LexisNexis Academic.

WITH

NEAR

ADJ

WITHIN

NOT WITHIN

PRE/2 (ProQuest)

W/2 (ProQuest)

 In-class Exercises:

4. Using Business Source Complete , find articles with Denver within 5 words of the phrase national parks. What can we learn about the way EbscoHost searches plurals from this search?

5. In LexisNexis Academic, find articles under "Major U.S. and World Publications" that contain renewable energy AND Egypt. Compare with renewable energy within the same paragraph as Egypt. Which search gives more results? Which search gives more relevant results?

Wildcards and Truncation

Wildcard: one character standing in place of any character

Truncation: one character truncating the search (anything to the right)

* most common truncation symbol

! used in LexisNexis

$ used in Dialog

 In-class Exercises:

6. Come up with an example in Peak that demonstrates the differences between using single star tructation vs. double star truncation.

7. Using the word environment, show how truncation works in LexisNexis Congressional

Nesting (Parentheses): forces proper processing order

Nesting is essential when mixing the AND and OR operators.

 In-class Exercises:  

8. Do a search for mountain lions or bears in colorado or new mexico in Peak, in LN Academic, and in Expanded Academic ASAP

Defaults

This is what happens when you do nothing. It is what happens when you enter a search without changing any of the settings.

Default search type [keyword, title, author, etc.]

Default operator [AND, OR, ADJ]

Default anchoring [left anchored, not anchored]

Field Searching

In each of the databases below, pay special attention to what fields are searchable.

Academic Search Complete, by default, searches "default fields". How can we determine what these fields are?

Search Strategies for Full Text Searching

Proximity operators much more important when doing full text searching than they are when searching surrogate records.

In-class Exercise: determine proximity syntax for LexisNexis Academic and Access World News.

In-class Exercise: Search the Denver Post via LexisNexis Academic for articles in 1995-96 about Denver International Airport and the baggage system. Do a similar search using Readex’s Access World News. How can searches be controlled by a) proximity operators and b) limiting the scope of the search (title, headline, etc.)?

In-class Exercise: Do the following searches in Academic Search Complete:

a) aquifers and Colorado (default keyword search)

b) aquifers (subject) and Colorado (geographic terms)

c) aquifers (subject) and Colorado (subject)

Explain the results of b) in relation to c).

d) aquifers (all text) and Colorado (all text)

e) aquifers w10 colorado (all text)

Explain the results of d) in relation to e).