Post on 10-May-2015
transcript
Library Services
Academic Skills: Information Research for Historianslibguides.rhul.ac.uk/
June 2014
Russell Burke
Library Services
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Aims of the session
• Overview of Library Services available to support your essay research
• Step 1 - Plan and prepare a literature search
• Step 2 - Use LibrarySearch and subject specific resources to find information
• Step 3 – Adapt & refine your searches
• Step 4 - Manage your references (& generate bibliographies using RefWorks)
• Access eresources off-campus
• Using other libraries
Step One: Think about your own research topic & related concepts and write down the keywords that you need to search for
Library Services
My essay question / research topic:
What do I want to find out?
(Describe the next slide: what do you see?
What words would you search for to find information on what is
depicted?)
Library Services
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Library Services
Developing your search strategy
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My topic: ‘Emigration during the Great Famine’
Main concepts & keywords
Alternative terms
1. Emigration migration, (Irish) diaspora
2. Great Famine Irish famine, Potato famine, Great Irish famine
Library Services
Developing your search strategy
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Think carefully about which keywords you need to search for:
Alternative terms e.g. governance / policy / regulation
Alternative spellings e.g. colour or color; organisation or organization
Changing terminologye.g. consumption / tuberculosis
Step 2: Use your Library Subject Guide and select the resources or types of resources you think you would need to use to carry out your research
Library Services
Now that I know what I want to find out:
What resources would I use?
See part 1 of the following prezi for an overview of the types of material available via the
Library:
http://prezi.com/24tl5r36eel5/developing-your-search-skills/
Library Services
Selecting information sources
Library Subject Guides: libguides.rhul.ac.uk/
Online databases (eresources): libguides.rhul.ac.uk/Databases
LibrarySearch: librarysearch.rhul.ac.uk
Senate House Library & their eresources: senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/
Other internet resources…
e.g. public & private archives (you may have to visit
these in person to gain access)
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Primary material and reference resources
See the E-resources section of the:
History Subject Guide http://libguides.rhul.ac.uk/History
for lists of online primary material resources, reference resources and much more!
(Listed by type in the drop-down menu.)
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Secondary material resources
Full-text databases
• JSTOR
• Project Muse
Bibliographic databases (no or some full text, can use Find It links to check for full text)
• Web of Knowledge
• MLA Bibliography
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Why can’t I just use Google?
Evaluating information sources:
http://prezi.com/q5jglgamre6c/evaluating-information/
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Step three: think about how you will combing keywords and enter your search queries in your selected eresources (adjusting terms as you need to)
Library Services
Now that I know what I want to find out & where to find the resources:
How do I carry out searches to find
information on my topic?
(By combining your search terms in meaningful way!)
See your Library Subject Guide > Training > Searching for videos & more help
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Combining keywords - AND
Narrow your search using AND (also useful if you have too many results)
e.g. emigration AND Ireland
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Results containing EMIGRATION
Results containing
BOTH TERMS
Results containing
IRELAND
ie. only brings back results where all the words searched for are included somewhere in the title, summary and/or full-text
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Combining keywords - too few results?
Broaden your search using OR (also useful if you have too few results)
e.g. role OR function
17ie. brings back results where any the words searched for are included somewhere in the title, summary and/or full-text
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Making the most of synonyms
As well as searching for alternative terms, you can use wildcard characters ($ ? * -) to replace letters in search terms or to truncate a term:
Examples
histor* - finds history, historical, historiography etc.
theat* - finds theatre, theater, theatrical, etc.
wom*n - finds women, woman.
NB: Help pages in the online resources will explain which character is used as the wildcard
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Combining keywords – phrase searching
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“Hundred Years War”
“Great Irish Famine”
Use quotation (speech) marks to search for phrases where word need to appear next to each other (e.g. specific terminology, title of books / films, names & places).
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Now that I have found information on my topic:
How do I know that it is what I want and good
quality material?(see the ‘Evaluating information sources’
link mentioned above)
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Reviewing & evaluating your research
Do you have enough / too
much information
?
Is it relevant to
your research?
Does it answer the
whole question?
Is the information
current / within the date you require
Do you need to review
your underlying research question?
Step four: save the results that you need (references, abstracts, URL links, full text) and organise these so that you can find them when you need them & reference them in your assignments
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Now that I have the information (books, chapters, journal
articles, webpages etc) that I need:
How do I manage & reference them?
(You may have a lot of references and research material to keep track of!)
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Keeping track of useful items
• Emailing links to yourself
• Using the e-shelf in LibrarySearch• Log in to LibrarySearch
• Click on the star icon beside useful results
• Go to ‘e-shelf’
• Create baskets, email, export results
• NB - most other eresources provide these functions (you can do the same in JSTOR / ProjectMuse / MLA Bibliography
• OR you can keep all of your references in ONE PLACE and organised them by topic, essay title or course etc. by exporting references to RefWorks – this is really easy to do!24
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RefWorks
Bibliographic reference management software
Capture, save and organise references
Create a bibliography for your essay from containing 1 to 1000 items in your Departments Referencing Style in seconds!
Access it via the Library Subject Guides (Citation & Referencing)
Contains online self-help tutorials
Sign up to a free Library RefWorks training session:
Check the Library Information Skills Training Session on the Subject guide: http://libguides.rhul.ac.uk/
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Access online resources off-campus
Royal Holloway ‘Campus Anywhere’ (VPN)
The only way to access all of our electronic resources off campus is to install the Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, known as 'CampusAnywhere'.
This is quick and easy to set up and works on PCs, laptops & Macs
Go to the IT Services website to find out more:
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/it/home.aspx
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Using other libraries
Royal Holloway students all get free access to Senate House Library (SHL):
take along your RHUL Id card if you want to borrow books or use the study space there.
Online registration for SHL’s eresources:see the ‘Beyond RHUL’ section on the Library
Subject Guides for more information
Access to other Libraries using SCONUL Access:
see the ‘Beyond RHUL’ section on the Library Subject Guides for more information
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Questions?
Russell Burke
Information Consultant
2-07 Bedford LibraryRoyal Holloway University of London
Russell.Burke@rhul.ac.uk
01784 414065
Please remember to always check:
• LIBRARY SUBJECT GUIDES
• @RHUL_Library on TWITTER
• the Library’s FACEBOOK PAGE
for the latest information and updates!
Leo Reynolds. Flickr. CC-BY-NA