Library Session: April 29, 2009

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Connecting from Home - connect toUW restricted databases from off campus. Try the three minute tutorial.

Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan

Evaluating Sources

Reading Scholarly Sources

"For an activity to be designated as scholarship, it should manifest at least three key characteristics: it should be public, susceptible to critical review and evaluation, and accessible for exchange and use by other members of one's scholarly community. We thus observe with respect to all forms of scholarship that they are acts of mind or spirit that have been made public in some manner, have been subjected to peer review by members of one's intellectual or professional community, and can be cited, refuted, built-upon, and shared among members of that community. Scholarship properly communicated and critiqued serves as the building block for knowledge growth in a field."From: Shulman, Lee. The Carnegie Teaching Academy. (1998). The Pew Scholars National Fellowship Program (pp 9-10). Menlo Park, CA: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The UW Libraries subscribes to many excellent subject encyclopedias including two excellent online reference resources. These are especially helpful when you begin your research. They provide overviews on research topics and can help you narrow your topic. Use the Library of Congress Classification System handout to help you find print encyclopedias. The Reference Area is on the first floor of the Library.

• Gale Virtual Reference Library- UW restricted
• Oxford Reference Online - UW restricted

The Library also has many Topic Books that provide opposing viewpoints. For example, a Topic Book on animal rights might have a chapter suggesting that using animals in experiments is unnecessary and the next chapter would provide evidence that it is neccessary. These books are another way to focus your topic and/or to narrow it. Topic Books are found on the first floor across from the Reference Area.

The University of Washington Libraries uses the Library of Congress Classfication (and Call Number) System to organize information and materials. Use the Classification System to find a discipline on your topic. Many topics can be interdisciplinary.

The UW Libraries Catalog provides access to more than eight million titles from the 20 University of Washington Libraries in Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma. UW Bothell students may borrow materials from any UW Library, but remember it takes two to five days for materials to arrive. Plan ahead!

Subject Headings

To help you find keywords or other search terms for your topic, use the LC Subjects. These are the terms or phrases that the Library of Congress uses to describe a topic or subject. LC Subject Headings will help you find the "correct" term for your topic. This will help you create a more precise search. The Subject Headings can also narrow or broaden a search. It takes practice to use the LC Subject Headings, but using them will make you a more sophisticated researcher.

Other Resources in the UW Libraries

The UW Libraries has more than just books. There are also feature films and documentaries, musical recordings and historical photographs.To find films or musical recordings, you can limit your search in the UW Libraries Catalog to Publication Type.

To find photographs and other images, see Historic Photographs & Images. For historic photographs of the Pacific Northwest, see the UW Libraries Digital Collections.

New Resource!!! ArtStore UW restricted is a searchable database of digital images and associated catalog data, with new image collections added several times a year. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.

Remember, you can check out still and video cameras from Information Technologies located on the second floor and use the Multimedia Studio to edit video!

The UW Libraries subscribes to more than 150 different databases in many academic areas.

The two general databases, Expanded Academic ASAP- UW restricted and Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)- UW restricted find both scholarly and general interest articles in education, history, social sciences and humanities. Since these databases include all types of articles, you will need to make sure that the articles you find are scholarly.

For newspaper articles, use National Newspapers UW restricted to find major United States newspapers or Washington StateNewsstand UW restricted for a more local focus. If you are working on an historical topic, check out Historical New York Times (1851 - 2004)! UW restricted

Use Distinguishing Scholarly Journals to help you determine the scholarship of an article. Another helpful tool is Ulrich's Periodicals Directory UW restricted

Another way to search for scholarly journal articles in your discipline is to go to Campus Library's Subjects Guide. Each subject or discipline lists the many resources, including databases, that the UW Libraries offers.

Subject Headings

Just like the UW Libraries Catalog uses LC Subject Headings, many databases have their own subject headings. Some databases provide these subject headings after you have completed your first keyword search (for example, Academic Search Complete). Other databases provide a link to the subject guide search feature (for example, Expanded Academic ASAP). Finding the "correct" terms that a database uses for a subject or topic often makes researching easier, but the process of finding these "correct" terms can be more time consuming. If while using keywords when searching and you find that you are finding too many resources or you are not finding enough, you will want to use subject headings to create more precise search phrases.

• Electronic Reserves

• Campus Media Center (CMC) supports the use of media and technology for UWB/CCC faculty and students

• New Student Checklist