Library Catalog: http://portal.emich.edu/
Information Discovery: RDNG 660
Information Discovery Success Tips
- Select appropriate search tools
- People who know about a subject share their knowledge via multiple channels of communication, e.g., books, journals, magazines, government publications, theses, public internet sites, blogs, etc.
- To locate relevant subject information embedded in the communication channels you use search tools (including indexing/abstracting databases)
- There is currently NO universal search tool. MULTIPLE search tools are available to help locate relevant content embedded in EACH communication channel
- Seek appropriate language to describe your topic (in each tool)
- Given that
a variety of words/phrases are often used to describe your topic, the
words you choose to enter into a
search tool determine the accuracy of your search results. For example,
do you use 'student achievement', 'scholastic achievement', 'school
achievment', 'scholastic success', 'academic achievement', 'academic
success'?
-
Academic search tools (library catalogs, commercial indexing/abstracting
services) can help! How? Many academic search tools are constructed
by organizations that pay people to examine each item (e.g., article,
book, chapter) and then assign subject terms from an organizationally-created
thesaurus that describe the topics the item deals with. Instead
of trying to come up on your own with many different ways to express
your topic, you can determine what thesaurus term(s) are used in
each search tool. For example, if you type "child attachment" into
the library catalog, you find 4 titles. But if you examine the
subject descriptions of these titles you will often see the following
line:
Subject(s): Attachment behavior in children
If you reenter the search as "attachment behavior in children" you discover there are 40 items in the catalog.
-
Academic search tools (library catalogs, commercial indexing/abstracting
services) can help! How? Many academic search tools are constructed
by organizations that pay people to examine each item (e.g., article,
book, chapter) and then assign subject terms from an organizationally-created
thesaurus that describe the topics the item deals with. Instead
of trying to come up on your own with many different ways to express
your topic, you can determine what thesaurus term(s) are used in
each search tool. For example, if you type "child attachment" into
the library catalog, you find 4 titles. But if you examine the
subject descriptions of these titles you will often see the following
line:
- Given that
a variety of words/phrases are often used to describe your topic, the
words you choose to enter into a
search tool determine the accuracy of your search results. For example,
do you use 'student achievement', 'scholastic achievement', 'school
achievment', 'scholastic success', 'academic achievement', 'academic
success'?
[Click to enlarge image in new window]
Find BOOKS owned by the EMU library
Find BOOKS beyond EMU
The Michigan eLibrary Catalog, MeLCat, is a catalog of the book, audio, and video holdings of about 140 Michigan libraries. If you've searched the EMU Library catalog and found that an item is either not owned or is checked out to another user, you can search MeLCat. If you find the item in MeLCat, and it is marked as available for loan, you can request that it be sent to the EMU Library for loan to you.
Perhaps just as interesting, if your local public library participates in MeLCat, and if you have (or obtain) a library card from that library, you can: 1) choose your local public library (instead of EMU) on the MeLCat login screen, and, 2) enter your public library card number (instead of your EMU E-number) on the MeLCat login screen. If you login to MeLCat with your public library account, MeLCat will deliver your requested material to your local public library (and not to the EMU Library.)
Go to MeLCat or see more about it.
WorldCat (via FirstSearch) lists the book holdings not only of EMU, but also of the U.S. Library of Congress as well as about 10,000 other institutions, including academic and public libraries.
- The green-background phrase above, Eastern Michigan
University Library, is a visual cue that the EMU Library owns the
book. Click the link below that phrase, Search the catalog at
EMU Bruce T. Halle Library, to dispay the
catalog record for the book, including its location and circulation status
- In the image below, the absence of the green-background phrase Eastern
Michigan University Library (seen above), is a visual cue that the
EMU Library probably does NOT own the book.
Click the link Libraries worldwide that own item to see what libraries in our region own the book.
- If you are not a library card holder at one of the above libraries, you
can use one of two services to request that the EMU Library borrow the
book for you and loan it to you from our library.
- Using MeLCat, a catalog of the holdings of about 140 Michigan libraries, is the fastest way to request that a book held by one of those libraries is delivered to EMU for your use.
- Using Illiad, our traditional Interlibary Loan service, while a little slower to deliver items than MeLCat, can deliver to the EMU Library many books that are not owned by the MeLCat libraries.
Find a specific (known) PERIODICAL (Journal, Magazine, Neswpaper)
OR
a specific (known) PERIODICAL ARTICLE
- Go to Library Home Page: http://www.emich.edu/halle/
- Type the Periodical Name in the Periodicals Locator
Quick Search box
and click
the 'Go' button - The results display:
- This reveals: 1) that articles from 1999 to date are available in digital full-text format in two EMU Library subscription databases, Academic OneFile and General OneFile; and 2) that the EMU Library might have earlier years of the journal available in a physical format (print or microform) in the library building.
- When you click the underlined journal title, a FindText+ menu
opens that displays panels to connect to both electronic full text
as well as the library catalog. Clicking the GO button following
the Academic OneFile Electronic Full Text panel...
- ...brings up a description of the journal as well as a menu which
allows you to browse to the year, and then the issue you want.
- If you click on an issue, e.g., Fall 2006, you can browse the
table of contents and then click a link to bring up the text
- What if you want to view articles published before 1999? Clicking
the GO button following the EMU Library Catalog panel...
- ...opens
a window with the EMU Library catalog record for the journal, where
you
will see what volumes of the journal the Library owns and where
the different volumes are located.
Find PERIODICAL ARTICLES about a topic (when you do not know specific articles)
Use Indexing/Abstracting Tools
- Multi-Subject (multi-disciplinary) tools generally search descriptions of articles from periodicals covering diverse subject fields
- Disciplinary tools generally search descriptions of articles covering a small subset of closely related fields
- K-9 content level search tools
When looking at the results screen of an EMU Library database search, you
want to answer the question "Which articles are available for me to read
via the EMU Library?" In
general, the library does NOT subscribe to all the journal article content
contained in databases. The FindText+ button ( 
)
or text link is a technology tool you'll see on database result pages that
can assist you in determining, "Which articles are available
to read via the EMU Library?"
Find ACADEMIC / SCHOLARLY material using free web search engines
While Google offers a well-known, no-cost, web search engine, it also provides a no-cost search engine that focuses on identifying scholarly/academic material on the web, e.g., peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, and universities.
Keith Stanger
Bruce T. Halle Library
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
734.487.0020 x2136 [voice]
734.487.8861 [fax]
keith@stanger.com