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The Albert Sloman Library |
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The Albert Sloman Library |
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Finding information in the Albert Sloman Library |
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Table of Contents Item's on reading lists Find... Other links Library Quick links
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This guide is designed to help you make the most of the Library's resources in support of your learning, whether you are looking for weekly readings specified by your tutor, or searching more generally for resources for a project or dissertation. Finding items on reading lists The Library aims to check all reading lists sent to us by the academic departments and centres, so that everything specified on a reading list is available from the Library. There are two main types of material on reading lists, books and journal articles. To find a book: search by Title or Author in the library catalogue, then make a note of the classmark, availability and shelved at information (see the Guide to the Library Catalogue for more details). For Example to find: Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, (Norton, 1990). Search under Title "search for modern china" or under Author "spence, jonathan" The information you will need to make a note of is: - Classmark: DS 754.S7 (Classmarks DB-DX can be found on the 3rd floor - see the Classification scheme summary and the Shelved At locations pages for more details). Many books on reading lists are part of the Short Loan collection on the ground floor of the Library. Some books are also available online. These can be searched for in the same way as ordinary books and have the classmark "Online book". To access the text of an e-book, click on the link in the middle of the relevant catalogue record to "view the full text". To find a journal article: the Library does not index the contents of the journals it subscribes to, so you will need to use the Periodical Title search to find the location of the journal and then look for the relevant volume on the shelves or access it online. You will also need to check the holdings information to make sure the Library has the volume you are looking for. For example to find: Thomas Bernstein, Stalinism, Famine and Chinese Peasants, Theory and Society vol. 13, no. 3, May 1984, pp. 339-347. Search under Periodical Title "theory and society". The information you will need to make a note of is: - Classmark: H 1.T57 Many journals are also available online. Check the catalogue to see whether the Library provides online access and which volumes are covered, then follow the link in the middle of the catalogue record (internet version of the catalogue only) to view the full text. For example, for the journal title above the Library provides online access to the following volumes: - view the full text on JSTOR: Vol. 1- 1974- (except current 3
years) So to access the article above from volume 13
above, you would follow the link which reads: If you wanted to the current volume, you would
follow the link which reads: Journal articles in the XD collection Some journal articles on reading lists have been photocopied and catalogued separately, especially if the Library does not subscribe to the journal they have been taken from. These articles are available on request from the Circulation desk on the ground floor and can be found by searching for the Title or Author in the library catalogue, and making a note of the classmark (beginning XD). For example to find: V.D. Lippit, The Great Leap Forward Reconsidered, Modern China, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1975, pp. 92-115, search under Title "great leap forward reconsidered" or Author "lippit, v" and then ask for XD 6651 at the Circulation desk. (TIP: to find out more about how to tell which items on reading lists are books and which are journal articles, see Referencing Skills on the mySkills website. Remember that the library catalogue is a source of the kind of information which you will need to compile bibliographies for essays, reports and dissertations, such as publication dates and page numbers.) Using the reading list database Another way in which to find items on reading lists is to use the Library's reading list database, which is part of the Course Materials Repository (see the Reading lists page). Finding items on a particular subject (i.e. for short term projects, such as presentations and essays) The Library provides access to an extensive array of materials which you can use to supplement reading list recommendations when writing essays or reports, or preparing presentations. For short term assignments, you will probably still want to focus on books and journal articles. Finding books Keywords The Keyword option in the library catalogue will help you to identify items which are relevant to the particular subject you are interested in. Enter one or more words which describe your subject and the catalogue will return a list of books which contain your terms somewhere in the catalogue record. This search will also find relevant e-books which the Library provides access to. For Example To look for books on the economy in modern China. Search under Keyword(s) "modern china economy" (11 results found, including 1 e-book) Truncation Using a truncation operator can help to find more titles. For example, searching for "modern china econom*" will also find titles which have the word economics and economic in the record, as well as those which have economy. In fact, this search finds 21 additional titles. Subject headings Once you have found a book that is relevant to your topic, you can use the subject headings assigned to it to find other similar books. For example Nicholas R. Lardy, Agriculture in China's Modern Economic Development, (Cambridge University Press, 1983). Click on subject heading "Agriculture -- Economic Aspects -- China" (14 books including this one have this subject heading). Finding journal articles Abstracting/indexing and full text resources You will need to use some of the Library's other resources to help you find articles on a particular subject, rather than the Library catalogue. This is because the Library does not index the contents of the journals it subscribes to within the catalogue. Resources for finding journal articles can be in print or online, and can cover wide subject areas or be very subject specific. There are two main types of resource: abstracting and indexing resources and full text resources. You can use both types of resource to search for articles, but abstracting and indexing resources will only tell you where a particular article is published (sometimes called a citation or a reference), rather than providing access to the article itself. They may also provide a summary of the article which you can use to help you to decide whether it is worth reading the whole thing (this is usually called an abstract). Using an abstracting and indexing resource is therefore a two stage process - you use the resource to find references to articles that you may be interested in reading, and then you go to a different resource, usually the Library catalogue, to find out whether you can get hold of the article itself through the Library. The ISI Citation Indexes from Web of Knowledge are an example of a widely used abstracting and indexing resource. When using Web of Knowledge, there is an option whereby you can check the Library catalogue for a particular journal by clicking the Go button next to Holdings. Full text resources vary in terms of whether all or only some of the searchable articles are provided in full text through the resource. JSTOR is an example of a resource where all of the content which you can search can be accessed in full text (TIP: this is only the case if you search JSTOR from links on the Library website. When searching through an internet search engine, such as Google, you may come across references to articles in JSTOR which the Library does not provide access to.) Many resources provide access to some articles in full and some as citations only. Ingenta is an example of this kind of resource. To find out which resources the Library provides access to which are relevant to your subject area, look at the databases subject listing, or do a subject heading search in the catalogue. For example, searching for "history databases" will find a list of databases relevant to history. For more information on individual resources, see the Databases page, which contains details of coverage and access arrangements for electronic resources, as well as guidance on how to search. (To find print resources, browse the Reference Room on the first floor at the relevant classmarks). Some of the more general resources are: 1.
ISI Citation Indexes from Web of Knowledge Where the full text of an article is not available through a particular resource, you can check the Library catalogue to see whether the Library provides access to the journal in print or online, using the Periodical Title option. If the Library does not provide access to the journal then it may be possible to get hold of the article from another library (see Finding items II below). Search terms and Boolean operators Before you start any kind of subject searching, whether in the Library catalogue, or one of the other resources, it is worth spending some time thinking about exactly what your topic is, and the different words that can be used to describe it, including any relevant synonyms and regional spelling variations. You may need to do several different searches combining your keywords in different ways before you find all the material that is relevant to your topic. Electronic resources all tend to work slightly differently so before searching a particular resource, it is important to have a look at any help which is available, to see how your terms can be combined, and whether there are any particular options which will help you find what you are looking for. The Library produces guides to some of the main electronic resources provided by the Library; these are available opposite the Enquiry desk on the first floor, and from the Databases page (see the guide to Web of Knowledge for an example). If you find that your searches are coming up with too many results or too few, you will need to think of ways of making your topic more specific, or more general, or possibly describing it in different terms. Using a truncation operator as shown in the library catalogue above is one way to broaden a search. It is also possible to combine keywords by using Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT). Combining keywords with AND will narrow a search as all keywords must therefore be present in any results. Combining keywords with OR will broaden a search as results only need to contain one of the keywords. For example The Keyword search in the library catalogue automatically assumes that keywords are to be combined with AND unless you specify otherwise. The search "death dying" finds 78 titles, whereas the search "death or dying" finds 2123 titles. Finding items on a particular subject more generally (i.e. for longer term projects, such as dissertations and theses) In addition to the materials available in this Library, for longer term projects you may want to consider looking for materials which are available from other libraries. For major projects, dissertations and theses, you may wish to visit other libraries, to obtain items by Inter Library Loan, or to recommend that the Library purchases items which it does not already have in stock. Finding books Other library catalogues are a good place to start when you want to widen your search. The British Library Catalogue and the Consortium of University Research Libraries Catalogue (COPAC) are both available online, as are many other Higher Education institutions' library catalogues. It may also be worth searching the websites of some of the larger bookshops on the internet, such as Amazon and Blackwell. If you find material that you think is essential to your research, you can apply for it by Inter Library Loan, or recommend that the Library purchases it, using the online book suggestion form. Alternatively you may be able to arrange to visit the library where the material is held (see access to other libraries for more information). Finding journal articles As mentioned above, the abstracting/indexing resources which the Library provides access to are not restricted to items in this Library, so you can use them to search more generally for references to articles, which can then be obtained by Inter Library Loan. Finding specific kinds of material So far, we have looked at ways to locate books and journal articles for different purposes, but there are some other types of material that you may wish to use as part of your academic work. See http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/search/h for resources by Material type Finding newspaper articles Most of the Library's newspaper holdings are on microfilm, although the databases Nexis and Keesing's World News Archive provide a 20 year archive of news from a large number of global sources. To identify relevant articles from an earlier period than this, there are printed indexes available in the Reference Room, at classmark AP. The relevant microfilms can then be requested from the Current Periodicals desk or the Enquiry desk on the first floor of the Library. (The database Palmer's Full Text Online contains the Index to The Times from October 1790 to December 1905. The Full Text component spans the years from 1800 to 1870). See also: the Newspapers page. Finding theses and research Details of University of Essex theses held by the Library (including
all PhD theses) are available from the library catalogue where you
may search by author or title; a subject listing of
Essex theses is
also available. The library also has printed and electronic indexes
of theses produced by other universities. (See also: the Theses
page)
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Finding conference proceedings Conference proceedings can be found quickly in the library catalogue
by using the subject heading search of "conference" and the first
words of the subject of the conference.
ISI proceedings Finding exam papers Past exam papers for the last five years can be found in the Short Loan collection on the ground floor. In addition, past exam papers for most departments are available online as part of the Course Materials Repository. The web can be both a method of finding information and a source of full text. There are two main ways of navigating the web a. search engines and b. directories. Be wary of the quality of the sites you use on the web, you should be looking for information that is of an academically rigorous standard. Search Engines Google is the best search engine but there are different versions, Google Scholar purports to search "scholarly literature", Google books searches books "cover to cover" and can have useful extracts. Directories, Portals and Gateways Directories, portals and gateways can be useful for finding information on the web as they are often organised by subject. The advantage to gateways is that some evaluation has taken place as part of their creation i.e. a human being has assessed the website and decided the resource is useful. This can mean that the sites included in gateways are of a high standard. However, this is not always the case so you should be careful. Gateways or portals provided on academic sites or by Higher Education bodies (i.e. .ac, or .edu) can usually be regarded as reliable. The online tutorial Internet Detective is designed to help students develop critical skills for searching the internet and evaluating websites when carrying out academic research. See also: Critical Use of the Internet (mySkills page) Abstracting/Indexing An abstracting/indexing resource indexes the contents of a number of journals, and provides summaries (abstracts) of the indexed articles. Not all indexing resources include abstracts. Availability The element of a catalogue record that shows whether or not the book is available to be borrowed. Boolean operators A set of words (usually AND, OR, NOT) that can be used to combine search terms in order to produce certain results. Citation The bibliographic details of a piece of information (such as a book or journal article), used to locate that piece of information. Classmark The alphanumeric code assigned to items in the Library, based on the subject of the item. Items in the Library are shelved on the basis of this code. Databases Collections of electronic data, such as library catalogues, abstracting/indexing resources, and digitised full text collections. Full Text The entire text of a journal article available online. As opposed to a citation. Monograph Another word for a book, but refers specifically to publications which are issued once and are then complete. As opposed to a periodical. Periodical/Journal Any publication which is produced in serial form, usually with parts that are issued at regular intervals. As opposed to a monograph. Shelved At The element of a catalogue record that shows where a book is shelved. Subject heading A reference to the topic and focus of an item, which is included in the catalogue record. Truncation operators A symbol (or set of symbols) that can be used to represent the presence of unspecified letters following a word stem. XD The classmark used in the Library to refer to journal articles which have been photocopied and form part of the Short Loan collection. Getting further help For more help on finding information, ask at the Enquiry desk on the First Floor of the Library, or contact your subject librarian directly. |
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