LIS4060 Notes Week 2
Categorizing a Question
Reference Sources
Think broadly: [In-class brainstorming of various reference sources] -
Books: What kinds of information are contained in textbooks? Scholarly monographs? Edited books? Conference proceedings?
Journals: What kinds of information are contained in magazines
like Time and Newsweek? Scholarly journals? Trade journals?
Resources: Ulrich's
Periodicals Directory (Online version known as
Ulrichsweb)
Classification Systems
Library of Congress Classification Outline: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/
Dewey Decimal Classifation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes and http://www.deweybrowse.org/
Superintendent of Documents: http://libguides.du.edu/BrowseDocs
Organization of Information
How is all of the above content indexed? Does the online environment affect the way this information is accessed?
What is the difference between an index and a catalog?
Types of Indexes
Classified Indexes: EconLit ; MLA International Bibliography; UNCRD Publications (bibliography and index I created)
Cumulative Indexes: Not relevant in online world, but important in print world
Monthly catalogue, United States public documents (note that this record has a "cumulative index note" that says: " Subject index, 1900-1971. (Includes index to former and later titles.) 15 v."
Concordances: "An alphabetical arrangement of the principal words contained in a book, with citations of the passages in which they occur." - OED
The Harvard concordance to Shakespeare
The New Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible
A critical Greek and English concordance of the New Testament (online)
First-line, Last-line Indexes: Columbia Granger's poetry indexes index first and last lines of poetry. Example of an online first-line index.
String Indexes: From the early days of computers.A KWIC index is a type of string index. KWIC stands for key word in context. See Wikipedia entry .
Ready Reference Questions. These are quick answer questons: who won the 2013 World Series? Who is the Prime Minister of Japan? How many people live in the United States? We seem to get fewer of these today than we did a decade or two ago. Any ideas why?
Research Questions: These questions are not so quick. They often involve searching in several places and there may not be a simple answer. It may involve teaching the user how to think about researching a topic.
Field Trip to the Anderson Academic Commons Research (Reference) Area
Additional Resources for Fun