WR 65 Instructional Session
What are we talking about today?
- Where to search when we use the library website.
- How to search efficiently in library resources (and how that's different from what we might be used to).
- And then we'll actually search!
Let's talk about where to search when we use the library website.
There's a lot of information on the library homepage. What's the first thing you notice on this page?
Click here to view the library homepage live.
To see a road map for information that will help you make decisions about where to click on this page, click on the arrows in the image below:
Click here to view the library homepage live.
To see a road map for information that will help you make decisions about where to click on this page, click on the arrows in the image below:
There's a lot of information there, even with our road map! You know who's great at helping you sift through a lot of information? Librarians! You can always ask for help in selecting where to search, but to get you started, I always recommend these easy background information databases:
- Gale Virtual Reference Library | encyclopedia database
- Credo Reference | encyclopedia database
Let's talk about how to search efficiently.
When you search in a database you want to search only the most important words--I call it Hulkspeak, but you can call it whatever you want! The good news is, you already know how to search in a database if you've used a database like Netflix or Hulu before!
If I type in "I want to watch cooking shows" into Hulu, I get a bunch of stuff--but none of it is relevant to what I want to watch!
If I type in "I want to watch cooking shows" into Hulu, I get a bunch of stuff--but none of it is relevant to what I want to watch!
But if I just type in the most important word, "cooking," I get stuff that's a lot more relevant to what I want to watch!
Once you have your keywords and you know where you want to start searching, you can type your keywords into your selected database and start working with a results page.
Sometimes you get too many results, or results that aren't relevant to your search. If you did a search in Amazon, to the left below, to find a phone cover, you might start by typing in "phone cover" as your keywords. From you results, you might then filter your results to only show phone covers for a certain brand, or in a certain price range or color. This allows you to take your results from a lot to a more relevant little.
Same principle in library databases. This may look different depending on where you search, but you will always have filter options by date, source type, language, etc.
Sometimes you get too many results, or results that aren't relevant to your search. If you did a search in Amazon, to the left below, to find a phone cover, you might start by typing in "phone cover" as your keywords. From you results, you might then filter your results to only show phone covers for a certain brand, or in a certain price range or color. This allows you to take your results from a lot to a more relevant little.
Same principle in library databases. This may look different depending on where you search, but you will always have filter options by date, source type, language, etc.
When using library resources, you'll find a lot of helpful tools. Look for these tools, they are your friends!
Let's start searching!
Now you know where you're searching and how you're searching, let's start searching!
But remember, when you search, you might find yourself getting stumped. That's totally normal, there's a lot to this whole research thing! To help you, the library offers a wide range of services. We'll help even if you're not using library resources, you just have to ask!
But remember, when you search, you might find yourself getting stumped. That's totally normal, there's a lot to this whole research thing! To help you, the library offers a wide range of services. We'll help even if you're not using library resources, you just have to ask!