Interdisciplinary research and current awareness

Research Refresher – Summer Research Assistants3 May 2010

Julie Lavigne, Law Librarian

Brian Dickson Law Library

Interdisciplinarity

Kathleen M. Sullivan in the Foreword to the Michigan Law Review, 2001-2002, vol. 100.

Law and… uOttawa:

– Law and Technology– Law and Social Justice

McGill:– McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law , co-

sponsored with the Faculties of Medicine and Religious Studies

Yale Law School:– Cultural Cognition Project

etc.

How should I conduct interdisciplinary research? Determine the major themes and

keywords that relate to your research Identify the relevant types of information

you are looking for– For example, who are the experts in this field? Do you want journal

articles only? etc.

Identify the major databases, journals, monographs (books), websites, etc., that are relevant

Don’t forget to search in multidisciplinary databases!

uOttawa Subject Guides (A-Z) www.biblio.uottawa.ca

uOttawa Subject Guides

LibGuides: uOttawa

Some of our multidisciplinary databases Academic Search Complete:

– Multidisciplinary database designed specifically for academic institutions, it includes full text of journals, magazines, and newspapers. It is the world’s largest scholarly, multidisciplinary full text database.

Academic OneFile:– This Multidisciplinary database includes abstracts and full

text. Academic content is smaller than that of Academic Search Premier.

Some of our multidisciplinary databases

Expanded Academic ASAP: – Provides journal literature from over 2,200 full-text titles

in a wide variety of subject areas including: social sciences, humanities, science and technology, medicine, national news periodicals, general interest magazines, and newswires.

JSTOR: – Multidisciplinary database giving archival access to

scholarly journals within the following areas: arts, sciences, humanities and social sciences. Note that Jstor does not provide access to current issues.

Some of our business and management databases

See also the Management subject guide Business Source Complete

– This scholarly business database provides the leading collection of bibliographic and full text content (more than 2,800 journals), with indexing and abstracts (more than 3,700 journals) for the most important business journals, and various types of reports. Subjects include management, economics, banking & finance, accounting, international business, labour relations, computer systems, marketing, area studies, taxation, industry & manufacturing, production & operations management, communications & media, human resources, public administration, and health care management.

Some of our business and management databases

CBCA Complete– Includes journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters and

newswires, with comprehensive subject coverage, including Current Events, Business, Education, Science and Medicine, Arts, Social Sciences, and Law, all with a Canadian focus. Full text is available for selected titles.

Canadian Business Resource (CBR)– Profiles on over 50 Canadian Companies, information on

2,500 of Canada's largest firms and all 3,500 TSX and TSX Venture listed firms, and more than 40,000 contact names.

Some of our databases in criminology See also the Criminology subject guide Criminal Justice Abstracts @ Scholars Po

rtal– Comprehensive coverage of the major journals,

books, and reports from government and non-governmental agencies. International coverage. Subjects include crime trends, prevention projects, corrections, juvenile delinquency, police, courts, offenders, victims, and sentencing.

Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection @ Scholars Portal– Includes the full-text of 15 Sage journals in

criminology.

Some of our databases in criminology Violence and Abuse Abstracts @ Sch

olars Portal – Index to journal literature on interpersonal

violence, including psychological, physical and sexual abuse against women and children, hate crimes against groups such as gay and lesbians and ethnic minorities, elder abuse and neglect, work place violence, gang violence and other violence impinging upon domestic relations.

See also the Government Information subject guide and the International Development subject guide

Peace Research Abstracts @ Scholars Portal: index to information on all aspects of peace and conflicts studies research.

Some of our databases in public and international affairs See also the

Public and International Affairs subject guide

Canadian Public Policy Collection:– Collection of monograph publications from Canadian public policy

institutes, government agencies, advocacy groups, think-tanks, university research centers and other public interest groups.

PAIS International:– A bibliographic index with abstracts. Includes journal articles, books,

etc. Subjects include political, social, and public policy issues. Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO):

– Full-text database of theory and research on international affairs that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, books, journals and policy briefs.

Some of our news and current affairs databases See also the

Newspaper Articles and Current Events subject guide

Canadian Newsstand– Canadian newspapers in English.

Factiva– Over 6,000 Canadian and foreign newspapers, magazines and reports;

most full text. Includes business news, market research reports, analyst reports and Web sites.

CPI.Q (Canadian Periodical Index)– Provides access to Canadian and American periodical literature. Full

text articles for more than 160 titles and full text for selected sections of The Globe and Mail. Emphasis on mainstream and academic titles available in Canadian libraries. Over 400 periodicals are indexed in CPI.Q with more than 80 journals in business.

Some of our news and current affairs databases A number of other databases also

include archived newspapers :– Globe and Mail: Canada's Heritage (1844 - 2003)– Historical New York Times– Paper of Record

• Free registration required– Times Digital Archive

Some of our databases for government information See also the

Government Information subject guide Canadian Census Analyser: Provides

access to commonly requested census data, 1971-2001

Canadian Research Index: Index of provincial and federal documents

Located on the 3rd floor of the Morisset library

The Invisible or Deep WebGenerally, we know how to search what is here (i.e., on the surface)

But, as the saying goes, that is just the tip of the iceberg. How do you get to everything (or, at least, some of the everything) that is here?

Some tips and techniques for improving your Google searches “exact phrase” define: find a definition of a term site: search a specific site or

domain (e.g., site:.gc.ca will search only Government of Canada sites)

.format search for particular document types (e.g., “legal ethics” .pdf will retrieve largely only PDF documents)

Also try...

Google Scholar– To search for publicly-available scholarly articles

Google Books– To search the full text of many publicly-available

books Google Translate

– To get general translations of websites in other languages

Recommended reading!

Available at Morriset Library

MRT General / ZA 4251 .G66

C34 2005  

Tara Calishain & Rael Dornfest, Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching (Sebastopol, Calif. : O'Reilly, 2005).

Current awareness – know the difference between ensuring your research is up to date …1

For current research, you must:– Properly situate your research within its discipline– Read systematically on the subject, ensuring that all

aspects of the question have been properly answered– Use relevant information and apply it to actual

questions___1

Adapted from Lyne Welsh, Université de Montréal, La veille documentaire: Demeurez au courant des nouvelles publications (Training presented to the CEFES program, Fall 2007), online: http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/SS/apprendre/guides/veille-documentaire-notes-de-cours.pdf (updated by Christiane Gagnon & Marianne O’Reilly, documentation technicians, in February 2008).

… and ensuring the researcher (aka YOU) is up to date!

Current awareness:– Makes it easier to locate relevant and new

information sources– Helps you continually be aware of developments

in your field(s) of interest– Should be preceded by training on various tools

for remaining effective researchers– Relies on either “Pull” or “Push” technologies

Current awareness

“Push”, on the other hand, occurs when the information is “pushed” toward the user; that is to say, information is delivered to the user according to criteria that he or she has set up in the past.

“Pull” represents the classic way of using the Web: the user goes regularly and directly to various Internet sites to “pull” information and recent news about particular subjects.

RSS (“Really Simple Syndication”) feeds RSS feeds allow you to automatically organize or index

the contents of a website, or part of a site, and to deliver it in a digested format on another site.

It allows websites to automatically post the last news articles, or other pieces of content, that have appeared on a site.

This is called the syndication of content. Think of a TV show that goes into syndication – its same content is now available on alternate channels. This is the same idea, except you have more control over which shows you want to see (like Tivo?).

Some RSS icons

Look for these on your favourite

websites, to see if you can set up an

RSS feed to the site.

Check out the examples at the

Globe & Mail and the New York Times.

RSS feeds and RSS aggregators You can easily access all your

requested RSS feeds using an aggregator or reader.

This means you just have to go to one location to quickly check if there have been any updates to your favourite websites.

Example of an RSS reader: Bloglines

Table of Contents services

Traditionally, libraries would send the table of contents for newly-received journals to all professors who had requested this service. Today, many journals offer this service online, either through their websites or through a database service. The Table of Contents gets sent to your email electronically.

Example of a Table of Contents service: Legal Scholarship Network

Research alerts Many databases, and even search

engines like Google and Yahoo!, allow you to set up research alerts; i.e., you set up a search query that you can then ask the system to re-run for you on a regular basis

The research results are generally sent to your email depending on what frequency you have requested

The most frequently-used research alerts by lawyers are probably those offered by LexisNexis/Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada

Where to set up research alert in Google

Using blogs Web log = blog You all know, more or less, what blogs are.

But there are some very good ones run by lawyers or people otherwise affiliated with the justice system.

Check out Blawg (http://www.blawg.com) – A directory of legal blogs, podcasts, and news feeds– Includes lawyers writing about their area of

expertise, law librarians offering research tips and tricks, law professors expressing their opinions and analysis, and technologists discussing the latest trends and ideas in legal technology.

Social bookmarking Social bookmarking is a way you can

take all your bits and pieces of documented knowledge and share it with others. It is a way of sharing your bibliographies on various topics, or your favourite websites, etc., with others who share your interests.

Some examples include:– CiteULike – Delicious– LibraryThing

CiteULike: “Everyone’s library”

A free service allowing you to collect, organise, and share the references to articles that you have found on particular topics (i.e., your bibliographies)

By searching other people’s bibliographies on the same topic, you can find other literature relevant to your topic. It can also help you find other keywords to search, as well as particular authors who contribute to a field.

CiteULike: “Everyone’s library”

Delicious

One of the original social bookmarking sites

We all have huge lists of bookmarks on various topics. This site gives you an easy way to share these websites with others who may share your interests.

You organize them by assigning “tags”, keywords that describe the sites.

Delicious

LibraryThing

A free service (up to 200 books) permitting you to share your libraries with other users

LibraryThing