UN1001: Perspectives on Paris Sec. 57

         Instructor: M. Anderson mieander@mtu.edu andersm@pasty.com

         Librarian: Amanda Binoniemi; abinonie@mtu.edu, 487-1814

The Reference Collection is a good place to collect background information on an issue or to start your research. The collection is arranged by subject matter, using the Library of Congress classification system (call numbers.) Try the following:

New Encyclopdia Britannica AE5 E363 2002 REF

Historical dictionary of the French Revolution DC 147 .H36 2004 REF

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers LB 2369 .G53 2003 Ref Desk

Current Biography (1940- ) CT 100 .C9 REF

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism PN771 .G27 REF

Dictionary of Literary Biography Series PQ area in REF

 

Finding Older Periodical & Newspaper Articles

The Print Indexes are also on the second floor arranged by Library of Congress classification. Use the print indexes to find articles dated earlier than those found through the online databases. Try:

Readers Guide to Periodical Literature (1900-1991) AI 3 .I6 INDEXES

New York Times Index (1913-present) AI 21 .N5 INDEXES

Use the Library of Congress Classification Subject Headings to browse the collection:

FranceCivilization;

FranceHistory;

FranceHistoryRevolution, 1789-1799;

French Literature;

American LiteratureFrance

Resources on the Librarys Web Page - www.lib.mtu.edu

MTU Online Catalog contains records of materials owned by the MTU Library.

Two search interfaces, Basic and Keyword allow the user to search for items by author, title, subject, call number, ISBN/ISSN, or keyword(s.) Catalog records include bibliographic and location information for items retrieved in your search. Use the Location, Status, Call Number information to find an item in the Library Collections.

Databases: E-Resources :

Access to electronic indexes/abstracts, online books, e-journals and selected websites. From E-Resources & E-Alerts select listings by alphabet, topic or provider (e.g. FirstSearch or Thomson Gale.) E-Resources are also searchable by name or very general keyword(s.) Use the index databases to locate journal articles, newspaper articles, or reviews on your topic. Some indexes or collections of indexes especially useful for this course include but are not limited to:

FirstSearch:

This database provides access to over 50 indexes. They include:

Worldcat, a comprehensive database for all types of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. This does NOT index periodicals at the article level;

*MLA Bibliography, Indexes, serials, books, dissertation, etc., published worldwide in literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore.;

Wilson Select Plus, A full text database comprised of articles represented by selected citations from Readers Guide Abstracts, Social Sciences Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts, General Science Abstracts, Education Abstracts, and Wilson Business Abstracts. May have resources for criticism.

AHSearch (Arts & Humanities): Indexing for more than 1,150 of the worlds leading arts and humanities journals. Also includes relevant items from over 7,000 of the worlds leading science and social sciences journals.

Essay and General Literature Index: Collected works in humanities & social sciences

Humanities Abstracts: diverse subject areas of the humanities

Periodicals Abstracts: Periodical abstracts from general and academic journals

Thomson Gale:

A comprehensive multi-index database including:

Expanded Academic ASAP:Gives access to arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images! May be of use to find criticism;

General Reference Center Gold: A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images. May have some good sources for criticism.

LexisNexis: Academicprovides full-text documents from over 5,600 news, business, legal, medical, and reference publications with a variety of flexible search options.

JSTOR:

Database of scanned images of back issues of over 100 scholarly journals in a variety of academic disciplines. Titles currently available are from the fields of: African-American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Ecology, Economics, Education, Finance, History, Literature, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Population Studies, Sociology and Statistics. The Language and Literature section is a good source for this class.

E-books:

There are a variety of databases with full-text books available. They include:

netLibrary:Through the librarys main page. Digital full-text versions of books such as reference works, scholarly monographs, literature and fiction.

Websites:

Evaluation of websites: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html - Cornell University Libraries Research Skills -One of the best sites on evaluating information found on the Internet.

Firstgov.gov: www.firstgov.gov. This is the official government site that searches over 87 million sites. Can search for just federal, federal and a specific state, federal and all states, all states, or a specific state. Advanced search gives the most flexibility.

Internet Public Library: Subject Collections http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/ Good starting place for a research-oriented approach to a variety of subject areas. IPL Emphasis is on education rather than entertainment.

 

 

 

 

Interlibrary Loan:

Request items using an ILL form available at the Circulation desk or online (Under Library Services menu, select Interlibrary Loans.) Many index databases also allow ILL requests through their sites.

Note The ILL process can take time (longer than 10 days in some cases.) Plan your research time accordingly.

 

For Assistance

For individual assistance or instruction from a librarian, visit or phone the Reference/Information Desk (487-2507), e-mail instrlib@mtu.edu, or complete an Individual Instruction Request form found under Reference & Instruction on the Librarys web page at www.lib.mtu.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Reference for Databases

Collection/ Database	Boolean	Proximity/ Phrase	Truncation/ Wildcards	Full Text	Retrieve Results
FirstSearch accesses about 60 databases, mostly periodical indexes with abstracts, including MLA Bibliography (MLA)	AND, OR, NOT	Wx - same order within x words of one another Nx - either order within x words of one another	* multiple-character # single-character + singular or plural only (s or es) ? any number of characters	Some	E-mail, Disk, Print
Lexis-Nexis Universe accesses news, business, legal, medical, and reference information	AND, OR	Phrase is system default W/n - either order within x words of one another W/p - either order, same paragraph W/s - either order, same sentence PRE/n - first word precedes the second by n words	! multiple-character   * single-character	Yes	E-mail, Disk, Print
JSTOR accesses back issues of over 100 scholarly journals from within 2-5 years of the present, back to their beginnings	AND, OR	NEAR keywords occur in the same sentence (within 10 words) or in the same paragraph (within 25 words)	+ retrieves singular or plural in English only	Yes	Print, Post Script file on hard drive

Each of these systems offers online help with more details on search capabilities.