Step 1: Finding Books in the Library Catalog

• The Library Catalog includes holdings of both Lightner Library and the Penn Yan Public Library
  
  
  • Keuka Students can borrow books from Penn Yan Public with their student ID
    
    
  • OR Lightner Library can get them for you in 2 or 3 days using interlibrary loan
    
    
• In the Library Catalog you will find books, videos and audiocassettes, NOT journals
  
  
• You can search by author, title, subject or keyword
  
  

Step 2: Finding Books on the Shelf

Step 3: Using Reference Books

In Lightner Library the Reference Books are the first 4 1/2 shelves past the reference office
on your right as you enter.

Encyclopedias are an excellent starting point (even if you can't use them in your bibliography)

• they give a good overview of a subject
  
  
• they often include bibliography that will lead you to other good resources on the subject
  
  
• you will find general encyclopedias at the beginning of the reference section
  
  
• there are also subject specific encyclopedias shelved by LC number in the reference section

Reference Books Are Different!

You will find you actually save time by taking the time to understand how the reference works when you first use it. Ask yourself these questions:

• What is the scope?
  
  
  • What subject?
    
    
  • What type of book is it?
    
    
    • Is it a collection of articles?
      
      
    • Statistics?
      
      
    • A field guide?
      
      
    • A Directory?
      
      
• How does it work?
  • Is there a section on “How to use this book?”
    
    
  • Where’s the index? (almanacs have the index in the front)
    
    
  • Are the numbers in the index indicating
    
    
    • page numbers?
      
      
    • Table numbers? (US Statistical abstracts use table numbers, not page numbers)
      
      
    • Illustrations?

Your assignment will often require you to use a number of "scholarly" articles.
This means articles concerned with academic study or research.

In many of our online databases you can limit your search to scholarly, or peer-reviewed articles.

Here are some criteria for telling the difference between scholarly and popular journals

Step 5: Finding Journals

Keuka has an online Journal Locator that will let you know if we have access to a journal title in print in the library, as an electronic journal, or in one of the online databases.

You can get to it from the Lightner Library Homepage.
In the "FIND IT" section under "Journals" click on "Lightner Library Journal Holdings"

• You can search all sources, or limit to one database or “Keuka College Holdings”
  
  
• It is searchable by keyword in the title, or words at the beginning of a title.

Many of the articles you will need will be found in our online databases (see Step 7). But for older materials, or if you are using a library that doesn't have online databases, you will need to know how to use the print indexes and abstracts.

At Keuka they are located behind the computers near the front door.

Print Indexes

They index periodical articles and book reviews

• Find the one that covers your subject (examples)
  • Education Index
  • Biography Index
  • General Science Index
  • Book Review Index
    
    
• Start by looking at the front of a volume for
  • User’s Guide
  • What is indexed
  • Abbreviations key

   

Here is an example of a citation from Education Index

How to read it:

• Author = J. Saltman.
• Article title = Censoring the imagination: challenges to children’s books.
• Journal Title = Emerg Libr (Emergency Librarian)

• Volume and pages = v25 (volume 25) p8-12 (pages 8-12) Ja/F '98 (January/February 1998)

  Search Trick You need to look in the abbreviations key to determine the actual journal title. Don't assume you know what it is.

Print Abstracts

They index periodical articles and book reviews just like Print Indexes, but they also include a description of the item (the abstract)

• Find the one that covers your subject (examples)
  • Psychological Abstracts
  • Criminal Justice Abstracts
  • Women’s Studies Abstracts
• Start by looking in the indexes at the back of a volume
  The index gives an abstract number (NOT page number)
  
  • Author Index
  • Subject Index

   

Here is an example from Criminal Justice Abstracts Subject and Geographic Index

Here is what one of the abstracts looks like:

How to read it:

• Authors: Francis Brian; Soothill, Keith
• Article title: “Does sex offending lead to homicide?”
• Journal title: Journal of Forensic Psychiatry
• Volume and pages: 11(1):49-66, 2000 (volume 11, issue 1, pages 49-66, year 2000)

Keuka College gives access to its students, faculty and staff to many databases of journal articles.

Some include indexes only, others index and abstracts, others the full-text of articles.

You can get to to these databases from the Lightner Library Homepage.
In the "FIND IT" section click on "Online Databases".

For access from off campus go to the "Do It" section and click on "Logon From Off Campus". Follow the logon instructions.

Just as with print indexes and abstracts the first step is to choose the right database for you subject. You can get some ideas by going to "Internet Resources by Subject" in the "FIND IT" section of the Lightner Library Homepage.

Here is were your KEYWORDS from "Module I" come into play. You can use them to do Boolean searching in our online databases and in many search engines. (Boolean searching means using AND, OR, and NOT to narrow or broaden you search.) Syracuse University has a great "Boolean Tutorial" if you need some help.

You can also take advantage of truncation in you search strategy. Truncation is when you use a symbol to replace letters at the end of the root of a word to bring up plurals or variations.

• e.g. comput* will get the same results as compute or computer or computers or computerize

You can also replace a letter in the middle of word.

• e.g. wom?n will get the same results as woman or women

Databases differ in whether they allow truncation and which symbols they use, so check the "how to", or "search tips" for further information.

Searching the Internet is different from searching the online databases.

• Online Databases are:
  • Available only to the Keuka College community
  • Computer equivalent of a print index. They may provide citations, abstracts or full text of journal articles
  • Use Boolean and truncation for searching
    
    
• Internet is
  • Free to anyone with a connection
  • Anyone can put anything on the Internet (see "Module 3" to learn how to evalute sources)
  • May use Boolean, more likely to use + and -
    
  • For searching information and suggested search engines and directories go to"Websites" in the "FIND IT" section of the Lightner Library Homepage.