DATABASE LITERACY

Angela Cornwell 2012

and more

TODAY Find Library Guide on Information

Technology Management About the Library

Getting Help Peer Reviewed Journals/Articles Databases

Research Process Search strategies:

Keywords Phrase searching Truncation/wild cards Boolean Operators

LIU Databases – Search Examples

Citing your Sources

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT LIBRARY GUIDE URL: http://liu.cwp.libguides.com/ITM Go to Main Library Page,

RESEARCH PROCESS Choose a topic Collect information, build vocabulary

Choose keywords or search terms Choose where to search Perform searches

Choose information materials(sources) Evaluate information

Read and take notes Write paper from notes Cite sources for bibliography

Revise

Revise

Revise

Social networking can benefit business. Employee abuse of social networking can be detrimental to business. Social Networking’s affects on corporate productivity. Information Technology and Web 2.0 in the workplace

SEARCH STRATEGY - KEYWORDS Start by writing out your topic in a

sentence or two, then go through and circle the main words. These will be your keywords or search words. Important nouns are best. Include synonyms.

Example:

XX

XX

XX

X X

X

INFORMATION SOURCESJournal ArticlesBooks

EncyclopediasBroad

Narrow

TOPIC

Specific

SCOPE

Overview

POPULAR VS SCHOLARLY JOURNALS (ARTICLES)

• Articles are written by authors with academic credentials.

• Articles are written for scholars• Articles are in-depth and often have a bibliography• Publications have few, if any, advertisements• Articles may be approved by a panel of peer

scholars• Good source for finding primary research

• Articles are written by journalists• Articles are written for the general public• Publications have a lot of color photographs• Publications are typically published weekly• Good source for: information or opinions about

popular culture, current events

FREE VS SUBSCRIBED -INFORMATION IN DATABASES

POST’S LIBRARY DATABASES

Remote access from Home Barcode is password Library has over 200 different databases,

organized: By Subject Alphabetically By Vendor

WHAT IS A DATABASE? A collection of information (records) organized

and presented to serve a specific purpose. Optimized for Searching

DATABASES Each record is identical in layout, how many fields,

size of fields, etc. These fields can be used as access points to

retrieve information.

ID Title Journal Subject Year Author1 Peer Reviewed

Etc….

00006890 Creative technology and rap

World Englishes Rap Music,Linguistics,Software

2011 EVELYN CH'IEN

Y

00006890 You Want to Be a Billionaire ...How Bad?

Forbes Wealth, Musicians & conductors, Hip hop music, Rap music

2011 Zack O'Malley Greenburg

N

Bibliographic databases (Indexes) – contains citation information,may include: summary, abstract.

Full-text databases - contain some full texts Numeric databases - mostly numeric data (numbers)

such as statistics or financial data. Image databases - art prints, photos, animations,

and other types of images.

Audio/Video databases - audio clips, music, speeches. Mixed databases - combine two or more of the other

database types.

DATABASE TYPES

KEYWORD SEARCHING

• Keyword - allows you to search for any word(s)

you choose. This is the default search of most databases

Useful when:

• You do not know the exact title. • Want to search all fields in the database

Example: One Flew Over the Nest

PHRASE SEARCHING

Put phrases in quotes

Use: “Information Technology” instead of: IT

Search for: hot dog “hot dog”

FIELD SEARCHING

Vendor (provider) of Databases creates subjects – try to locate a subject for your search(thesaurus) for best results

Author or Title or Subject

Try: Subject: “information technology”Or Subject: “project management”

TRUNCATION OPERATOR

Truncation Operator *• search on beginning of word

Examples: Tw*huckleber*raft* and river*

technolog*technologytechnologiestechnological

BOOLEAN SEARCHINGBOOLEAN AND OPERATOR

Searching for sagan AND aliens will result in documents that have Both those terms in them.

                                                                

                              

BOOLEAN SEARCHINGBOOLEAN OR OPERATOR

Searching for sagan OR aliens will result in documents that have Either of those terms in them.

*Useful for synonyms

BOOLEAN SEARCHINGBOOLEAN NOT OPERATOR

Searching for steinbeck NOT pony will result in documents that have the term: Steinbeck in them, but not the term: pony.

DATABASES

LOCATE APPROPRIATE DATABASE

HAVE A CITATION FOR A JOURNAL ARTICLE?

Easiest way to check if we subscribe to that journal ->Periodicals

CITING YOUR PAPER IN APA

See: Library Guide

QUESTIONS?

• Contact me• Stop by the Reference Desk• Make an One-on-One Reference appointment