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Reference Training Materials This material was used in the graduate Library Media Education
program at Western Kentucky University. It is placed here to allow library
workers to train themselves in the use of reference materials. Copyright
2001 - 2005 Bryan M. Carson. |
Boolean Searching
Many people think that searching means just plugging in a term in a search box and pressing {Enter}. They couldn't be further from the truth!
Effective searching is one of the most important skills that a librarian can have. Various databases and search engines have tried to use "natural language" algorithms in order to all people to plug in their terms, but most of them are not very effective.
One thing that happens with a bad search is that the searcher is not even aware that there is material he or she has not found. The person thinks that they have gotten all of the relevant material, and stops looking.
The proper method of conducting a search is to start broad and narrow down your focus as you go along. That way you make sure that you have found everything that is relevant. This strategy is actually based on the search methods that were used for missing ships at sea. By starting broad and narrowing down, eventually you eliminate everything that is not on target, and what remains is the bullseye.
Librarians should be aware of the importance of doing a proper search, and should be able to conduct searches and teach patrons how to search in an effective manner. The most important type of searching is called "Boolean" searching. This is a search strategy that encompasses using AND and OR in your search statement.
In order to teach you effective searching, please complete the following three short tutorials.
This tutorial comes from Syracuse University: http://florin.syr.edu/webarch/searchpro/boolean_tutorial.html.
* This tutorial comes from Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon: http://terra.chemeketa.edu/library/instruction/tutorials/boolean/boolean.htm
* This tutorial comes from New York University: http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/info/instruct/tutorials/boolean/boolean.html
Controlled vocabularies and thesauri are among the most important tools that a librarian can use. In order to make sure that you understand what the concept means, I have given you some examples. Here is what happens with "controlled vocabulary" in an index:
Suppose that you have an index. The people who prepare the index are called indexers. They actually look at the articles and decide how to put them into the index. In some cases there is also an abstract to be written. Controlled vocabulary comes in when the indexer is choosing the subject headings and writing the abstract.
Instead of just picking whatever subject seems right, the indexer has a list of words that he or she is supposed to use for certain topics. For example, instead of using the term "environmental racism" in the Proquest Thesaurus, the list of subject headings might tell the indexer to use the term "environmental justice." Because the words that they can use are "controlled" by this list, it is called a "controlled vocabulary."
On the user side, we can access that list of words contained in the controlled vocabulary. We call that list a thesaurus. Using thesauri is very important, since we want to do our searching using the same words that the indexer has used. If we don't use the words that they used, we will have difficulty getting the results we want.
An example of this is the term "breast cancer." If you use the thesaurus for Medline, which is known as MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), you won't find anything under the term "breast cancer." You would need to use the term "breast neoplasms" instead. The way that you would find this out is by using the thesaurus.
Another good feature of using a thesaurus includes the ability to see how the words relate to one another and to find other words to use. For example, in Medline, we can look at the MeSH heading "breast neoplasms." It shows that there is a broader heading for the term "neoplasms." If you searched for the term "neoplasms," you would find articles about "breast neoplasms." However, you would also find articles about other types of cancer, such as "digestive system neoplasms."
A good thesaurus also shows narrower terms. For example, if you searched for the term "breast neoplasms," you would get articles about breast cancer in both men and women. However, if you were only interested in articles on breast cancer in men, you could use the narrower term "breast neoplasms, male" as your search heading. That would be more specific and would get you what you want a little easier.
Finally, a good thesaurus shows you related headings. If you looked up "environmental regulations" in the Proquest thesurus, you would find that the broader term is "regulation," but you would also find that there are related terms such as "environmental impact statements" or "polution control." This will help you to pinpoint the articles that you are looking for.
The difference between a general database user and a librarian or super searcher is that the super searcher uses the controlled vocabulary terms from the thesaurus. The super searcher also knows to search the subject field when he or she is using controlled vocabulary, while the general searcher often just puts terms into the keyword search field. The result is that the super searcher gets much better results.
ERIC is the largest database for research in the field of education. ERIC is also useful for people who are doing research in psychology.
The online ERIC database is actually a combination of what used to be two seperate indexes published in paper format. These two indexes are the Resources in Education (RIE) index and the Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). RIE was an index to books, reports, curriculum guides, and government documents in education. CIJE was an index to journal articles.
Although RIE and CIJE were seperate publications in paper, now the ERIC database covers the complete run of both sets. You can search both sets together, or can restrict to either RIE or CIJE, which effectively lets you restrict your search to either journal articles or to documents.
One important thing to remember about the ERIC database is that when you find a journal entry you can just look for the journal by title. However, when you look at RIE material online or in paper, what you will find are "ERIC Documents." For ERIC Documents, the important information is actually the accesion number.
The library has a subscription to a set on microform that contains over 90% of the ERIC documents. We have these documents on microform through 1999, and the documents are online on the ERIC website from 1997 to the present. These documents are arranged by the ERIC number, so that is really the important number to know.
Another thing to look for in an ERIC or RIE record is whether the document is available or not. There is a field marked {Price Code} within the record. Surprisingly enough, this is the field that tells you whether the document is in the microfiche or on the ERIC Website. If the {Price Code}is marked "Price=MF01 Plus Postage," then the document is available in the microfiche or in on the ERIC website, depending on year.
On the other hand, if the {Price Code} field is marked as being "Not Available from EDRS," then the document is not in the microfiche or on the ERIC website. In this case, you can look at the {Availability} field. This will tell you where the document came from, and will usually include an address and a telephone number for you to order the document. Of course, most of these documents cost some money.
Some of the documents that are not available in the microfiche or on the ERIC website are books and may be owned by the library. Check in TOPCAT to make sure. Other items may be government documents; check MarciveWeb Docs to see if WKU owns the item.
Invisible Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity
The "visible web" is what you see in the results pages from general web search engines. It's also what you see in almost all subject directories. The "invisible web" is what you cannot retrieve ("see") in the search results and other links contained in these types of tools.
Invisible Web was created by Joe Barker at the library at the University of California, Berkely. The URL is http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.html
Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed
Those Dark Hiding Places" was created by Robert J. Lackie, a Librarian and Assistant Professor at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The URL is http://library.rider.edu/scholarly/rlackie/Invisible/Inv_Web.html
The tutorial for children is at the following address: http://www.kyvl.org/html/kids/f_homebase.html.
These two sites will give you a good idea how tutorials are structured for adults and for children.