Library & Research Skills:

MA English

MA Irish Studies

Ronan Madden Arts & Humanities Librarian

1. Basics: Library resources, catalogue, website 2. Journals and e-journals:

- what they are, how to source a journal article

3. Resource discovery using research databases: full-text, bibliographic: Boolean searching, fields, keeping up-to-date, Searcher4. Off-campus access to e-resources

Topics 1.

Ronan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Topics 2.

5. How to use the web more effectively e.g. advanced searching, Google Scholar, gateways, etc.6. Evaluating web and other information resources for quality7. Keeping up-to-date with RSS, alerts, bookmarking

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Library Resources for English

• Print resources, e-journals, research databases

• Special Collections & Archives• A-V Collection Q+3: DVDs, Blu-ray, VHS

- Multimedia area (for more see here)-View DVD, Blu-ray and VHS -Access audio and visual material from the web

• Group research rooms• Open Reserve:

-4 hour loan, DVDs and videos included

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Special Collections & Archives

• Q-1 in the Library

• Special Collections for English

• Browse the Archives collections

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Library Web Site

N.B.

•Catalogue•Journal Portal•Databases A-Z•Searcher•Subject Guides•How do I?•Study & Research Help

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Subject Guides

Starting point for relevant library & web material

- databases- journals

- free webSee English, Film Studies , History subject guides

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Catalogue: Tips

• Title searches: word-perfect• Keyword searches: you can ‘modify

search’ e.g. material type ‘Video/DVD’• Consider synonyms, American spellings• Use the ‘bag’ to export records• Use ‘Worldcat’ link to search beyond UCC• Use ‘My Library Account’ to request

books on loan, to see your reading history, to access e-resources from home, and to save ‘lists’ of books

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Off-Campus Access

• Use ‘My Library Account’(like when renewing or requesting books)

• Name + student number + six digit password (alpha-numeric)

• N.B. You should access e-resources through the Library web pages so that the ‘My Library Account’ screen will appear

• Contact Information desk on Q floor for queries e.g. forgotten password

• See: Learn about Pin NumbersRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

What if an item is not in UCC Library?

Aside from Googling it (book/article title or author and you may be lucky):

•Inter-library loanSee: Inter-library loans service

•Visit other libraries: ALCID, SCONUL or ‘Cork PAL’, ‘Music

PAL’ Check with customer services in Boole

LibrarySee: Accessing other libraries

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Journals

• Serials/Periodicals: published continuously• New research, cutting-edge• Print and/or electronic (30,000+ e-journals

in UCC)• ‘Peer-reviewed’/‘refereed’ =academic

journals‘The process by which an academic journal passes a paper submitted for publication to independent experts for comments on it’s suitability and worth; refereeing’

• Quality control: Papers accepted/rejected based on contribution to the field/new ideas, bias/conflicts of interest, suitability for journal etc.

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• Popular Magazines: (articles written by journalists)

- Newspapers

- Substantive news e.g. ‘The Economist’, ‘National Geographic’, ‘New Scientist’, ‘Irish Theatre Magazine’

- Magazines

• Trade Journals (specific industry, enable practitioners share market and product information within an industry) e.g. ‘Publisher’s Weekly’, ‘Moviemaker’, ‘Film Journal International’

Other Periodicals

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Finding a Journal Article

Example:

Singer, Katherine. “Stoned Shelley: Revolutionary Tactics and Women Under the Influence.” Studies in Romanticism 48.4 (2009): 687-707.

• Check the Journals Portal first

• See online tutorial:

‘Learn how to find the full-text of a journal article’ on the ‘Study & Research Help’ page

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Practice

Find the following articles online:

Ryle, Martin. “John McGahern: Memory, Autobiography, Fiction, History.” New Formations. 67 (2009): 35-45.

Newman, Barbara. “The Artifice of Eternity: Speaking of Heaven in Three Medieval Poems.” Religion & Literature 37.1 (2005): 1-24.

Are they also available in hard copy in the Library?

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‘Searcher’ Federated Search

• Good starting point

• Some results will be from non-academic periodicals

• N.B. you should still search specific databases individually

• You can set up an alert Ronan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

What are Databases? 1.

• Collections of logically related data e.g. library catalogue

• A bibliographic/research database: usually an electronic index to journal articles and books, containing citations & abstracts. Sometimes information about conference proceedings, theses, and other information formats is also included.

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What are Databases? 2.

• Sometimes the full text of the articles is included, or links to the full text.

• Some are indexing and abstracting only: i.e. metadata – not necessarily a link to the full text.

• Some are general e.g. Web of Science, others are more subject-specific e.g. LION, RILM.

• Essential for literature searches. • Other types of databases: ARTstor for

images, Music Online for streaming music, ACLS & Ebrary for e-booksRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

How are Databases Organised?

• Records: one record for each article, book etc.

• A field is the basic unit of entry in a record• Journal article fields might include:

- Title, Author, Keywords, Source, Publication Year, Abstract etc.

• For each record (e.g. article) added to the database, these fields must be included, and data is entered in that format.

• Searches of the databases can be narrowed to one or more fields: e.g. Author, Title, Author + Keyword, Keyword + Publication Year etc.

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Search Skills

college OR university

poverty AND crime

Boolean Operators: AND, OR

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Search Skills

cats NOT dogs

Boolean Operator: NOT

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Some Youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tm-sDKCnO4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1LpTbzSKd0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsSZps3NH-Mhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vube-ZcJFk4

Search Skills

• film noir AND women• film noir AND (women OR feminism OR

gender)• “film noir” AND (women OR woman OR

femini* OR female OR gender)_____________________________________________• censorship AND theatre• censor* AND (theatre OR theater OR drama

OR play OR stage) AND America*_____________________________________________

• (radio OR “broadcast media”) NOT television

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How to Find Relevant Databases

Use Databases A-Z: (See ‘Search the Library’)

•Drop-down menu ‘Browse databases by Subject area’. Use ‘English literature’, ‘Medieval Studies’, ‘Film Studies’ lists as a starting point. •Depending on your topic, you may also need to search other lists e.g. – Humanities•You could also check the Subject Guides•See online tutorial: Find the best databases for your assignments and research on the ‘Study & Research Help’ page

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Databases without full-text

• Indexing and abstracting databases • Metadata – descriptive information i.e. not

necessarily a link to the full text • Full-text might be available in UCC through

another database/resource• Check the Journals Portal to find out (or

Searcher)• You should use as many databases as

possible for a thorough literature search (don’t ignore something important just because full-text not immediately available)

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Bibliographic Databases/Indexes

• Relevant examples:

- MLA International Bibliography- OCLC incl. Worldcat, Articlefirst-- Arts and Humanities Citation Index

(Web of Knowledge)- International Medieval Bibliography- Film Index International- Historical abstracts- Bibliography of British & Irish History

Same applies to many of the references you might find through Google Scholar!

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Exercise:

Look for scholarly articles that discuss/explore race in American film

Try: Wilson Omnifile, Project Muse, Proquest Databases, Academic Search Complete,

JSTOR

•Keywords: race, racism, racial, film, movie, cinema, “motion picture”, American, America, Hollywood •Also maybe: discrimination, blackness, whiteness etc.? Ronan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Getting Started

• Initial reviews: identify broad problem area, potential research problem, theoretical background, relevant terminology (keywords and terms): Scoping

• Once approved, further searches to refine research problem and methodologies: ‘Trawling’ and ‘Mining’

• There may be a number of strands to your lit search• Keep a record of all of resources searched, and the

search terms and strings that you applied• Keeps a record of all books/articles that you are

likely to need for your bibliography e.g. Endnote, Zotero

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Further Resources 1.

[N.B. See also subject guides for links to free resources]

•Online Reference Resources: (alternative to Wikipedia) see: Reference Resources under ‘Search the Library’ N.B. Oxford Reference Online , LION , Film Indexes Online

•Images: ARTstor and others: See Images page

•Online Newspapers: Irish Newspaper Archive, Irish Times Digital Archive, Irish Times Newspaper

and see other news resources

•Music: Music Online, Oxford Music Online , Naxos Music (See Music Subject Portal)Ronan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Further Resources 2.

• E-books: ACLS Humanities E-book (HEB), Ebrary, EEBO, ECCO, Patrologia Latina , LION , African Writers Series

• Thesis Databases: ProQuest Dissertation & Theses UK & Ireland , Index to Theses (UK/IRL), Proquest Dissertations (North America), Free: ETHOS (UK), DART-Europe E-theses Portal , RIAN, NDLTDAlso: How do I find a thesis?

• Conferences Proceedings:Proceedings (OCLC), ZETOC

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Practice:

• Search for the term ‘poetics’ in Oxford Reference Online

• Search for ‘Lady Gregory’ in Dictionary of Irish Biography

• Search for ‘Man of Aran’ in Irish Times Digital Archive

• Search for theses relating to your area of interest (held in other institutions)

• Look for works by Mark Twain in LION

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Search the Web More Effectively: Overview

• Web: 8 billion pages? No one knows for sure

• Anyone can publish: quality control?• Google: uses index/database of web pages compiled

from sites found by it’s spider programs. Full text of sites sent to Google index. ‘Pagerank’ retrieves based on word occurrence, proximity, location on page, links to the page, traffic etc. about 100-200 ‘ingredients’. For the most part a keyword search.

• Problem: finding relevant scholarly material

Quantity and quality of information• Use the Library’s resources first!

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5 Tips1. Use ‘advanced search’ techniques on Google

and other search engines

2. Use Google Scholar, Google Books & ‘more’

3. Try other search engines – not just Google

4. Don’t always use search engines, go straight to good portals and sites suitable for your

topic

5. Always evaluate your findings for quality

See tutorial: Search the Web More Effectively for your Assignments and Research. Ronan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Tip 1. Use Advanced Search

Won’t guarantee that you find quality web sites, but may help you to control the sheer quantity.

•Remember: word order, choice of words, ‘stop words’ •Use Google Advanced Search , Yahoo Advanced Search etc.•Use search operators: See here.•Remember that Google personalizes your search. Try the ‘Verbatim’ search tool.

See also: Google Inside Search, Search Help Center & www.googleguide.comRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Tip 2. Use Google Scholar/Books & ‘more’

• Google scholar advanced search • Works better on-campus, or from

home through the Databases A-Z• No full text? check journal portal • See email alerts on Google Scholar• See tutorial:

Search the Web More Effectively for your Assignments and Research.

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Practice

• Look for scholarly web material for the following topic (try a basic search first, then advanced search, then Google Scholar & Google Books):

‘The Irish gothic novel’

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Tip 3. Use Other Search Engines

Don’t use same search engine for everything - try others (examples below). See here also:

Also: Exalead, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo , Bing , Blekko

Kartoo, Zuula, Metacrawler, Yippy, Search.com, Dogpile

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4. Don’t Always Use Search Engines

Save time by going straight to sites likely to be the most useful - gateways and portals can help:

Check out UCC Library guide for English:http://libguides.ucc.ie/english

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5. Evaluate your Information Sources

• Quality information: fundamental to developing a literature review that will be a solid foundation on which you can build quality research and assignments

• ‘Wiki’: can be edited by anyone with permissions; can’t rely on this information; can be useful for ‘getting your head around’ something i.e. background information, understanding a word/concept and for finding relevant keywords for your search

• See ‘Learn how to Evaluate information for your assignments and research on the ‘Study & Research Help’ pageRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Alerts and Feeds

• RSS Feeds: ‘Really Simple Syndication’ Information comes to your reader/aggregator of choice (you don’t have to go looking for it). E.G. Netvibes, Feedly, The Old Reader , NewsBlur , Feedreader, Genieo, etc. (Feeds from websites, blogs, databases, journals etc.Note: Feed reader apps for mobile devices

• Email Alert: Save searches on databases, Searcher, Google Scholar, or receive TOC alerts from journals, see TOC AlertsRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

Social Bookmarking

Bookmark web pages or journal articles on the web and share with others who have a similar research interest

Examples:

•General: - Evernote, Delicious, Diigo, Instapaper

•Academic: – Mendeley – Papers – Zotero

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Recap: What to use?• Catalogue: what does the Library hold? Books, e-books, DVDs

etc.• Journal portal: to see if the Library provides access to a

particular journal/serial title• Searcher: search box on the library website - one quick search

for books, articles, and more.• Library Databases: to locate articles and other resources for a

specific subject area - a more thorough literature search• Worldcat: to discover resources that are not available at UCC

Library• Subject Guides: sources customized for a particular subject

area• Internet Search: for quick facts and a general introduction to

topic. Google, Bing, Wikipedia, etc.• Google Scholar: to locate academic (journal articles, books)

information on a topic. For full text check the Library’s resources.

• Social Web: for the latest news and updates on a topic/fieldRonan Madden Info Lit 2014/15

• Referencing: - See Study & Research Help

- See catalogue: Style guides

• Endnote training:- Contact Richard Bradfield r.bradfield@ucc.ie and look for details on Library news

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www.slideshare.net/rmadden1/english-ma

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