Library Tutorial
Basic Library Tutorial

Basic Library Tutorial

Welcome to the Lane Community College Library

This beginning tutorial is meant to familiarize students with basic library concepts. Upon completion, you will be able to:

• Select appropriate databases to find articles on your subject
• Find full text articles
• Determine the difference between scholarly and popular articles
• Find books
• Understand the difference between keyword and subject heading searches

What is a Database?

The Lane Library offers access to subscription databases. These generally give you easy access to magazine, newspaper, and journal articles. Most of these will be "full text" which means you get the complete article. They are called subscription databases because the Library subscribes, or pays money, in order to get access to them. 

Why use a database instead of Google?

There are advantages to using library research databases compared to the web.   Databases are more focused and tailored to meet student's needs.   The information tends to be:  

• Stable--if you found it once you can find it again. 
• Reliable-most information in databases is based on a print resource and has gone through a review process.  Anyone can publish to the web.
• Precise--you can refine your search to get close to the material you need.  Compare searching 50 articles relevant to your search to 50 million from the Web.

 Self Test

 Question 1 (show/hide)

What you will find in a Database?

The Library Research Databases are a powerful tool to use for your research needs.  They give you access to quality information and free, full text access to thousands of magazine, journal, newspapers, and more.  Databases also feature the option to e-mail, print or save the articles that you find.

Remember! You can also access LCC Library Research Databases from home.  Your last name, L# and ExpressLane PIN are all you need.

General and Subject Article Databases

Each subscription database is different from the others. When you are searching for a journal, magazine, or newspaper article on a given topic, spend some time choosing which database to search. It can make a big difference in the results you will get. You can link to the research databases on the Library main page at www.lanecc.edu/library.

1. General Article Databases

 Is your topic general or cross-disciplinary? Currently in the news?

If so, start with one of the general article databases. Here you will find articles from a variety of sources - journals, magazines, and government publications. These cover a wide range of subjects and often include a mixture of popular and scholarly sources. This is often a good place to begin research.

2. Subject Article Databases

Is your topic in a particular area of study?

If so, select a database listed in a subject area. These specialize in a particular subject, and the articles indexed are generally from scholarly sources.

These are some of the subject databases categories you will find on the "Research Databases" webpage:

Begin Your Search

Start at the Research Database webpage to get a list of research database titles. These are aranged by subject. Once you select the database you want to use, click on the database title to take you to the search screen. Each database has a search box that allows you to enter in your search terms.

Once you have submitted your search you will get a results page with a list of citations.

Citation

Citations give you the information you need to locate an item. Citations of articles often include the author, title, magazine or journal name, page numbers and publication information.

Here is an example of an article citation: 

Remember - this will not be the way you cite your information in a bibliography. Consult our citing sources page for how to do this.

Abstract

The abstract of an article is a brief summary of its contents. Abstracts can save you time by helping you identify the best articles on your topic.

Here is an example of an abstract of the article:

Full text

The complete electronic text of an article is called the full text. Many of our databases are full text, meaning that you can access the complete article directly off your screen from anywhere you have Internet access. Databases allow you to print, email, and save the article.

Some databases do not provide photographs or charts that are part of the article. Other databases display the full text as PDF files, also called page images. These images contain the article complete with its accompanying images.  

Self Test

 Question 2 (show/hide)  

Finding Articles

General tips

Here are some general tips to effectively search subscription databases to find journal and magazine articles:

A good strategy is to:

1. Start with a keyword search.
2. Examine the records you retrieve.
3. Look for the subjects on the left hand side of the page. You may want to use these terms to further explore your topic.
4. Modify your search with the new terms, changing from a keyword search to a subject search.

More basic tips to finding articles

Be specific.

When looking for articles, it's important to ask for what you want.

• If you're researching "post-traumatic stress disorder as exhibited by Vietnam Veterans," search by using these terms, not "stress" and "war" for example.

Zoom in or out:

If you're not finding enough using a focused search, try a broader one.

• If "post-traumatic stress disorder as exhibited by Vietnam Veterans" doesn't work, try "post-traumatic stress disorder and war" or even "Veterans and psychology."

The key is to keep trying using different words and mixing their combinations.

Keep it simple:

Don't include more than two or three concepts in a search statement. You'll want to break up your topic into simple concepts and search these terms individually connecting them with AND. For instance, if your topic is:

• "Most people, including immigrants, say immigrants take jobs Americans don't want, but the public is divided on whether immigrants help the economy,"

break it up into simple parts:

• immigrants AND jobs AND economy

If you don't find enough articles, take out the word "jobs" or try another database.

Finally, keep trying.

Sometimes it just takes finding new words, trying different search combinations, or repeating your strategy in a different database. Remember, you can always ask a librarian for help.

Self Test

 Question 3 (show/hide)

Search Examples

Let's try a simple sample search

Your teacher wants you to find articles about Indians who lived in Oregon.

1. We would try a general database first. A good one would be Academic Search Premier.
2. Enter "oregon indians" in the search box.
3. You should get about 200 results.
4. Click on the title to view the article.
5. Print out, email, or save the complete full text of the article.

Journals—Scholarly or Popular?

*=criteria for evaluating electronic publications and fulltext articles

Quick Check

 Question 4 (show/hide)

This content has been republished with permission from Martha Johansen, author of the fabulous OWLS Tutorial at Humboldt State University Library's Information Literacy Program.

Finding Books in the Library

To find books in the Library, use the online catalog. A library online catalog is an index to books and other materials owned by a library. Just as an index in the back of a book gives access to the contents of a book, the library catalog provides access to the contents of the library. It lists what the library owns by author, title, subject and keyword. The catalog in the Lane Library provides access to books, periodicals, and audiovisual materials. All materials in the Lane Library are listed in the catalog. 

There are several ways to locate library materials using the online catalog. For starters, the catalog search box in the middle of the Library home page offers a quick way to search the Lane Library Catalog.

The catalog search box automatically performs a keyword search, which searches for words in the subject, the title, or the author. But you can also use the pull down menu to change to just a subject search, an author search, or a title search. 

Self Test

 Question 5 (show/hide)

Keywords and Subject Headings

Keywords

A keyword search looks in every part of the record and will retrieve those items that have the words you typed in regardless where they are. In fact, the words don't even have to be next to each other. For instance, if you typed in visual communication, one of the items you would retrieve is this one:

This is a picture dictionary, not a book about visual communication, or using images to teach, explain, impart or inform. Since the catalog looks in the title, author, notes, and subject heading areas, in some cases keyword searches will bring up false hits like this one.

Subject Headings

A "subject heading" is a descriptive phrase librarians assign to an item to describe its contents or subject. Finding the subject heading that leads to the information you seek is sometimes one of the most difficult aspects of doing library research. The words you think of to describe your topic may not be the same words or in the same order as the words used in the online catalog as subject headings. For example, the catalog uses the subject heading "Automobiles" instead of "Cars," "Betrothal" instead of "Engagement," and the phrase "Indians of North America" instead of the terms "Native Americans" or "American Indians." If you were looking for a Thai cookbook, you would use the subject heading, "Cookery—Thai." 

Looking for Subject Headings

When you are looking for subject headings, search the catalog using keywords first. For example, on the previous page you searched for the keywords visual communication and found many items, some useful and some not so useful. If you clicked on one of the useful items and looked at the bottom of the computer record, you would be able to see that the catalog uses the formal subject heading Visual communication. 

At this point, you could click Visual communication to find all the other records that share the same subject heading, Visual communication. By doing so, you would eliminate such books as the picture dictionary retrieved in the example on the previous page.

Sometimes a search can take you a while as you try to think of the right search terms and find the proper subject headings. But it becomes easier with practice. Remember, you can always ask a reference librarian to help you.

Another way to find the appropriate subject heading for your topic is to look it up in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). This five-volume set contains over a million subject headings. Because of cross-references, you can usually find one that will work for you.

Self Test

 Question 6 (show/hide)

Good Work!

You should now be able to:

• Select appropriate databases to find articles on your subject
• Find full text articles
• Determine the difference between scholarly and popular articles
• Find books
• Understand the difference between keyword and subject heading searches

Print self test score below