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Introduction to library resources.

School of Earth Sciences

Guido Tresoldi

Earth Sciences Librarian

What is the purpose of this presentation?

To introduce main aspects of using the Library and its resources at the University of Melbourne.

To show you how these resources can help you in your assignment.

Where is the Library?

Eastern Resource Centre (ERC)

Is the Physical Sciences Library. Collections comprise

ChemistryEarth SciencesEngineeringMathematics and StatisticsPhysics

It’s only 5 minutes walk away from Mc Coy Building.

Where is the Library?

You got a topic…Where to start?

Think about how to get your information – The search cycle.

Start

Planning

Planning

Keywords…..

Analyse your topic for its main concepts

Planning

main concepts

atmosphere oceans evolution earth

Topic: Evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans

Identify main concepts

Planning

main concepts

earthquakes plate

Topic: Earthquakes at plate margins

Identify main concepts

Planning

Earthquakes Plate

Seismic, uplift, stress Tectonics, Continental drift.

Expand keywords

Planning

General search operators narrow or broaden your search (called Boolean Operators) and, or, not

Atmosphere and Ocean and Evolution

Evolution or Oceans or Atmosphere

(Oceans or Atmosphere) and Evolution

Narrow or broaden your search

Planning

Evolution Oceans

AND - narrows your search

Planning

Oceans ANDEvolution

AND - narrows your search

Evolution

Planning

Oceans

OR - broadens your search

Evolution

Planning

OceansOR

OR - broadens your search

Evolution

Planning

”Natural Selection”

NOT - eliminates a word from your search

Evolution

Planning

NOT ‘NaturalSelection’

NOT - eliminates a word from your search

Planning

How to pick up both ‘Ocean’ and ‘Oceans’ in your search?

Use ocean*

Other examples: Mineral* for Mineral and Minerals

Volcano* for Volcanoes

Etc.

Truncation

Search and Locate

Sources

Searching Sources

The Catalogue

Discovery (Library Database)

Library homepage - starting point for literature searching.

• You can navigate to the Library homepage via the Student portal, or via the University homepage.

• Access to the Catalogue. • Access to Discovery. • Information about

opening hours, branch locations (maps), services, computer facilities, borrowing periods, overdue fines, skills classes you can attend, etc.

Searching Sources

• The catalogue lists printed and physical resources (books, print journal titles, reports, music scores, maps, pictures, CDs, DVDs, kits, e-books,etc. available within the University’s collection)

• Covers all the university library Parkville branches and country campuses.

Searching Sources

The catalogue

Searching Sources

It is one large unified database from many sources

Journal articlesImagesBooks

Discovery

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Searching Sources

Doing a keyword search in the catalogue

Origin and earth

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Getting results

Searching Sources

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Reading your results

Searching Sources

Location

Dewey number

Status: Available, On Loan etc.

Hyperlinked subject headings – widens your search.

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Searching Sources

Doing a keyword search using Discovery

Searching Sources

Getting and reading your results

What type of document is it?

You can refine your search

Source it Melbourne

In some cases you can get it straight away as full text.

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Evaluating Sources

Options: What is a good one?

Wikipedia Google Google Scholar

Library Catalogue

Specific databases Discovery

And more...

Evaluating Sources

Strengths Weaknesses

Easy to use, fastVandalism, biases and deliberate

factual errors

Updated quicklyOmissions, oversights

Covers many subjectsLack of citations

Links to related materialHard to judge the credibility

See the disclaimer

Good for quick definitions, overview, keywords

Should not cite

Evaluating Sources

Wikipedia

Internet search engines:Google, Yahoo!, Bing etc.

Strengths WeaknessesEasy to use, fast Web crawler: Search

engine does not evaluate information on Web sites:

no quality control

Broad coverage: covers many topics

Lots of results: information overload, hard to refine the

search

Convenient Irrelevant information: ranking algorithm

manipulation: Google bombing, Search Engine

Optimisation (SEO) industry

Updated quickly Internet sources can be unstable

Free Advertisements

Evaluating Sources

Google Scholar

Strengths Weaknesses

Easy to use, fastLots of results, hard to judge

relevance

Breadth of coverage: all disciplinesFull-text not always available

Scholarly information: Journal article abstracts, theses,

books, scientist homepages, public patent records

No detailed records: often just the title

A good starting point (especially with Discovery)

No source list: no way to know what is covered

Good for locating a specific item (especially with incomplete details)

Sources are not expertly or selectively chosen for inclusion

Evaluating Sources

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Checklist for evaluating sources of information•W

ho is the author? 

•What are his/her qualifications?

Authority       

•Is there bias?

•How are the claims justified?

Objectivity

•General public or scientific community?

Intended Audience

•Facts/figures/dates cited and references included?

Accuracy

•How up to date is the information?

Currency

Evaluating Sources

Quote from feedback from academic:

“The issue in many assignments students have accessed the papers online, and very probably not through Discovery, but through a keyword search in Google. So they do not realise that it is available as a paper entity and reference it as an online accessed piece of material.”

Evaluating Sources

Evaluating Sources

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Evaluating Sources

Primary and secondary sources

Primary:

• A journal article reporting NEW research or findings

Secondary:

• Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias 

 

Document and Citing

There are a number of ways of referencing other people’s work (APA 6th; Harvard; Chicago) but they all share some features

Failure to properly acknowledge your sources may leave you open to accusations of plagiarism.

In scientific and technical report writing you will often want to refer to other work that is somehow related toyour own.

A citation is inserted at the appropriate point in your text to indicate the existence of related work.

A full reference is given separately for each citation, to enable the reader to trace the corresponding work.

Referencing - how, what, why?

Creaney, N., 2008. How to Use the Harvard Style of Referencing [Online](Updated 13 March 2009) Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/ohlcv/how-to-use-the-harvard-style-of-referencing [Accessed 23 February 2012].

Document and Citing

Document and Citing

Reference List

Bryson, B 2005, A short history of nearly everything, Transworld, London

In text citation

Bryson (2005) has argued that ...OR... as found in his analysis (Bryson 2005).

Examples in the Harvard style of citation

Examples found on University’s ‘reCite’ website. Accessible through Library Home page and your LibGuide.

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Got all your information – how the library can help you with your poster presentation?

Library has software/hardware at your disposal such as:

ScannersColour PrintersAdobe PhotoshopGIMP

And more!

More information

How can I remember all this?

Libguides are your friend!

• Summary of what we learned today

• Contains further explanation and tutorials (including video)

• Has useful links

• Contact the library details

Plan how you will tackle the research. (Identify keywords, Boolean searches)

Search possible resources to use such as: journal articles, books.

Locate resources in the library and online.

Evaluate the resources you have found critically. (is the information you are using relevant, current, authoritative and reliable?)

Document the details of the resources you use. (Cite your sources and avoid plagiarism).

So… to recap

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Let’s go and look at the Library!

Lawrence University. 2011. Katy Cummings '11 at the 2011 Institute on Lake Superior Geology meeting, accessed 14 February 2012, <http://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/tag/marcia_bjornerud>

State University of New York at New Paltz. 2007. Thomas Schramm Wins Award For Presentation at National Geology Meeting, accessed 14 February 2012, <http://www.newpaltz.edu/geology/story.php?id=3717>

References: