Perspectives on Inquiry MTU Library Resources

Comic Books as Art, Literature, and Medium UN1001, Section R20 M. Mullins

Librarian: David Bezotte (dbezotte@mtu.edu, Phone 487-3041, Library-Room 203)

 

For Assistance - For individual assistance or instruction from a librarian, visit the Reference & Information desk on 2^nd floor, phone 487-2507, or use e-mail or instant messaging by clicking Ask a Librarian on the Library's website.

 

Guide to the Library -http://www.lib.mtu.edu/about/MTU_Library_Guide.pdf

Answers your questions about the basics of using the MTU Library.

 

Reference Collection - 2^nd Floor - The Reference Collection contains dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, directories, standards, codes, catalogs, etc.,and is a good place to find background information on an issue or start your research. The collection is arranged by subject, using the Library of Congress Classification System (LCCS) call numbers. An outline of the system is available at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html.

Contemporary Authors - PN 452 .C62 REF

Contemporary Literary Criticism PN 771 .C59 REF

The dark-blue, paper-cover index, arranged by author, refers to volumes containing biographical material on authors and critical material on their works.

World Encyclopedia of Comics PN 6710 .W6 REF

 

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

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) To request material not available at the JRVP Library

To request books and articles from other libraries, complete an Interlibrary Loan Request Form, available by selecting Interlibrary Loan on the Library's website or visiting the Circulation desk.

 

Locating Books & Periodicals

Books are located on the Third Floor in the Main Collection, shelved by Library of Congress call number.

Periodicals in are shelved by Library of Congress call number in these locations:

CURRENT JOURNALS (1^st Floor): Recent issues kept here until bound or reissued in microfilm/fiche.

SERIALS COLLECTION (Garden Level): Older volumes in print format.

MICROFICHE & MICROFILM AREA (2nd Floor, west): Older volumes on microfiche or microfilm.

Electronic journals are found under E-Journals on the Librarys web page.

 

JRVP Online Catalog

Contains records of materials owned by the MTU Library, including books, periodicals, videos, CDs, maps, government publications, and microformat materials. Two search interfaces, Basic and Keyword, allow the user to search for items by author, title, subject, call number, ISBN/ISSN, or keyword(s). Use the Location, Status, and Call Number information to find an item in the Library collections. To search for a periodical article, search by Journal Title for the title of the periodical (sometimes called the "Source"), rather than searching by article title or author.

 

Evaluating Information Sources - Consult these sites provided by other institutions:

Identifying Research Articles & Refereed Journals: http://gateway.library.uiuc.edu/lsx/tutorial/section3.html

Evaluating Web Sites: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html

 

Citation & Style Guides: http://library.concordia.ca/help/howto/citations.html

 

Government Information on the Web

FirstGov: www.firstgov.gov - Portal to federal and state government information. All sites linked by FirstGov are evaluated for accuracy and authority.

 

 

Databases (Periodical & Newspaper Indexes)

To find citations to articles from journals, conference proceedings, and other publications, go to the Librarys website and select Databases. The resulting screen offers four options for finding databases:

(1) "Search for Databases" to search database titles and/or descriptions,

(2) "Databases A-Z" to browse an alphabetical list by title,

(3) "Search by Subject Headings" to view databases grouped by subject, and

(4) "Search by Providers" to view databases grouped by publisher/provider.

 

To select the databases that best meet your needs, look at the database descriptions and consider

Topics covered (General news? Engineering? Social sciences? etc.)

Time period covered (1980-present? Most recent year? Last ten years? etc.)

Types of publications indexed (Periodical articles? Newspapers? Books? etc.)

Levels of publications indexed (Popular/news? Academic/research/scholarly? Trade/professional? etc.)

 

For Database Keyword Search Tips such as using truncation and Boolean & proximity operators, go to http://www.lib.mtu.edu/reference/tutorials/databasekeyword.aspx or select Tutorials on the Library's website.

 

Many databases include some articles in full text. If you're viewing an article citation from a database and see the Husky Fetch symbol , click on it for options for locating the article. Most of these databases may be accessed by MTU students/faculty/staff from off-campus by entering your ISO/Husky Mail user ID and password.

 

Here are some databases recommended for this course:

 

Thompson Gale

Academic OneFile: Indexes peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources in the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects.

Expanded Academic ASAP Scholarly and popular research on a variety of academic subjects. Includes full text.

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.

InfoTrac OneFile - Business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics.

 

FirstSearch

The Wilson indexes (marked with * ) allow a Reviewed Journal Phrase field search for peer-reviewed journal.

 

*Art Abstracts - Covers leading art publications from around the world and serves as a comprehensive record of art reproductions that appear in the indexed publications.

Article 1^st - Contains citations for items listed on the table of contents pages of over 12,600 journals in all subject areas.

*Humanities Abstracts - Covers English language periodicals in all areas of the humanities.

*Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Indexes and abstracts popular periodicals from the U.S. and Canada for a wide variety of subjects.

*WilsonSelectPlus Full text articles from over 1400 periodicals covering research in the Social Sciences, Humanities, Business, Education and General Sciences.

WorldCat - A worldwide library catalog; does not index periodicals at the article level.

 

LexisNexis Academic Wide range of business, legal, medical, and current affairs information including U.S. newspaper coverage in full text.

 

JSTOR -Back issues of over 200 scholarly journals dated from within 2-5 years. Contains titles from a wide range of fields, including Language & Literature.