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Online Searching, 4th ed.

Chapter 9BLS Search Example 1, Part 1: Wages by Area & Occupation

pp. 202 – 203

Librarian’s Guide to

Cultivating Database Skills for Research and Instruction

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In which we explore the job and salary prospects for registered nurses

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The different ‘geographies’ for which you can get wage information. These links simply jump down to their section on this page. (It seems more confusing than it should because the sections start immediately below these links.)

What we want is the last one, data by Metropolitan Area. Scroll or jump here.

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Jump alphabetically to a state… Scroll (perhaps endlessly)… or…ctrl-f (Windows) or ⌘-f (Mac)

and do a ‘find in page’ for the city you’re interested in.

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Breaking away from the textbook a tiny bit… how

about Garrison Keillor country? That is,

Minneapolis-St. Paul:

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Which takes us here…

(more verbiage and links… scroll a bit… to find:

Looking… looking… ah! But – is a nurse

a “Healthcare Practitioner” or a

“Support Occupation”?*

(pls click )

Apologies for such an awful example: *obviously* nurses are Healthcare Practitioners. I only included this question as an example for other situations where you really might NOT be sure what major occupational group something belongs to. Ok? Don’t throw things at me, please.

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But you don’t need to worry about deciding which group – this is where the ‘find-in-page’ function is particularly handy! Just ctrl-f or ⌘-f and look for nurse… and bingo.

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And there you have it – current employment figures and wage information for Registered Nurses in the Minneapolis-

St. Paul area (in this slightly-different-from-the-textbook example).

Easy-peasy. But what about the job prospects, the outlook for employment as a registered nurse? On to Part 2.

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Librarian’s Guide to Online Searching, 4th editionCultivating Database Skills for Research and Instruction

End of this search example