Information Skills/Literacy

M.Plan

1. Journals and e-journals:

- how to source a journal article 2. Resource discovery

- using electronic databases- advanced search techniques

• Off-campus access to e-resources

Topics

Geography in the Boole Library

• Read: Geography guide (see Subject Portal)

• Dewey decimal: class numbers are assigned based on subject content of book/journal

• Official Pubs. & Euro. Docs.: on Q+2 floor

• Maps (mostly in Special Collections Q-1)

• Open Reserve (4-hour loan)• E-journals and databases

Library Web Site

N.B.

•Journal Portal•Databases A-Z•Article Finder•Subject Portals•How do I?•Study & Research Help

Subject Portal

• Starting point for relevant library & web material

- databases- journals- websites

Catalogue: Tips

• Title searches must be word-perfect• For keyword searches, you can ‘modify search’

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

loan, to see your reading history and to access e-resources from home

• If not in UCC Library:- Inter-library loan- Visit another library e.g. ALCID- Try Google books, Internet Archive Text or

other free resources

Journals

• Periodicals, published continuously• Contain new research, cutting-edge• Available in print and/or electronic (30,000+

e-journals in UCC)• ‘Peer-reviewed’/‘refereed’ – academic

journals• Peer review/Refereed/Juried:

‘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’.

• Accepted/rejected: contribution to the field/new ideas, bias/conflicts of interest, suitability for journal

• Popular Magazines: (articles written by journalists)

- Newspapers

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

- Journal of opinion e.g. ‘Magill’, ‘Phoenix’- Magazines

• Trade Journals (specific industry, enable practitioners share market and product information within an industry) e.g. ‘Macworld’, ‘Restaurant Business’, ‘Chemical Week’, ‘Beverage World’

Other Periodicals

Finding a Journal Article

Example:

Bourne, L. (2007) ‘Understanding change in cities: a personal research path’. Canadian Geographer, 51(2):121-138

• To find article: Check the Journal Portal on Library homepage, or on ‘Search the Library’ page

• See tutorial: ‘Learn How To…Find the Full-Text of a Journal Article’ on the ‘Study & Research Help’ page

What if the Journal is not in UCC?

• Obviously Google the article title or the author and you may be lucky!

• Inter-library loan:http://booleweb.ucc.ie/index.php?pageID=44

• Visit other libraries: ‘ALCID’ or ‘SCONUL’ card required check with customer services in Boole Library http://booleweb.ucc.ie/index.php?pageID=340

Exercise

Is the following journal article available a. In print form in the Library?b. Electronically through the Library?

(PC password: Qfloor1)

Bayliss, D. (2004) ‘Creative planning in Ireland: the role of culture‐led development in Irish planning’, European Planning Studies, 12 (4): 497-515

What are Databases? 1.

• Collections of logically related data, designed to meet information needs of one or more users e.g. library catalogue

• A bibliographic or research database is a database of bibliographic information i.e. usually an electronic index to periodical articles, containing citations, abstracts. Sometimes information about books, conference proceedings, theses etc. also included.

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. ABI-Inform, Medline.

• Must be used when conducting literature searches.

• Other examples: ARTstor for images, Music Online for streaming music

What are Databases? 3.

• N.B. you need to search a range of relevant databases in order to produce a literature review

• Publisher databases such as Cambridge journals, Springerlink, Oxford journals (even Science Direct) alone are not sufficient for a comprehensive literature search

• Sometimes extras include alerting services, export to Endnote, saved searches etc.

• Most require payment/subscription from library e.g. JSTOR. Some are freely available on the web e.g. Pubmed (medical database)

How are Databases Organised?

• Consist of records: one record for each article, book etc.

• A field is the basic unit of entry in a record• For a 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.

Search Skills

college OR university

poverty AND crime

Boolean Operators: AND, OR

Search Skills

cats NOT dogs

Boolean Operator: NOT

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

Some Youtube videos:

Search Skills

• migration AND women• (migration OR emigration OR immigration) AND

women • (migration OR emigration OR immigration) AND

(women OR woman OR gender OR feminin*)_____________________________________________• “urban planning”• “sustainable development”_____________________________________________• (“spatial planning” OR “urban planning” OR

“regional planning” OR “territorial cohesion”) AND (Ireland OR Irish)

____________________________________________________• emigration NOT (Ireland OR Irish)

How to Find Relevant Databases

• Subject Portal: Geography• Databases A-Z: (See ‘Search the Library’)

Drop-down menu ‘Browse databases by Subject area’.Use ‘Geography’ list as a starting point only. Depending on your topic you may need to search other lists e.g.

- Law- Government- Engineering- Environmental Science- Science- Geoscience - Humanities- Economics

See also: Tutorial

Databases to start with

For Planning start with:

• PION (Environment & Planning), Science Direct, JSTOR, Informaworld/Taylor & Francis (not all full-text), Springerlink, Academic Search Complete (not all full-text), Wilson Omnifile (not all full-text), Ingenta, Wiley Interscience, Cambridge journals, Sage journals, Oxford journals, Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw

Engineering databases e.g.:• Compendex (EI Village)• ICONDA• ICE Virtual Library - Institution of Civil Engineers

Indexing databases e.g.:• Web of Knowledge• Scopus• OCLC• PADDI (free on the web)

[All on the Databases A-Z: See ‘Search the Library’]

Bibliographic Databases/Indexes

• Indexing and abstracting databases• Metadata – descriptive information i.e.

not necessarily a link to the full text• Some have facility to link you to the full

text if it is available in UCC• You may need to search the Journal

Portal to find the full text• Must use as many databases as possible

in order to conduct a thorough literature search

Further Resources 1.

Online Reference Resources: (alternative to Wikipedia)See ‘Reference Resources’ on ‘Search the Library’ page

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

Images: ARTstor and see ‘Finding Images’

Music: Music online

Further Resources 2.

Conferences Proceedings: ZETOC Proceedings (OCLC)

Thesis Databases: Index to Theses (UK/IRL), Proquest Dissertations and Theses UK & Ireland, Proquest Dissertations and Theses (North America), ETHOS (UK) Also: How do I find a thesis?

E-books: ACLS Humanities E-book (HEB)

Off-Campus Access

• Use ‘My Library Record’(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

• Contact the Information desk on Q floor if you have a query e.g. forgot your password

Exercise

• Look for scholarly articles on the following subject:‘The relationship between regional planning and labour mobility in Europe’

Search: Academic Search Complete, Science Direct, JSTOR etc.

Slides

www.slideshare.net/rmadden1/mplan