for Students

MODULE 1: EFFECTIVE SEARCHING

LESSON 1: USING LIBRARY TOOLS
Title
Effective Searching
Module 1, Lesson 1
Using Library Tools

Introduction
Imagine you’ve been assigned a research paper on the life of a writer you’ve never
heard of. What are the first steps you take to find sources? Do you start with Google? If
you can’t find what you’re looking for right away, what do you do next? And how do you
wade through thousands of search results to find the ones you really want?

In this lesson, we’ll talk about beginning your research using library databases.
A database is an electronic catalog that gives you information about how to find
publications like books or articles. The information about each individual publication is
called a citation. You can use this information to locate the publication in your library or
online. Sometimes the full text of the publication will be available with the citation.

Most databases focus on specific topics, such as genealogy or art history, so no single
database will contain information about all existing publications. Once you find the
database you want, you can search to find publications that are even more closely
related to your topic.

In this lesson, you will learn how to find out what resources are available, how to decide
on the best places to search, and how to make sure you have access to the tools you
need.

Subject Guides
Your first step is to see what’s available to you. Take a look at your library’s website.
Most libraries provide a list of the databases available to their users. On your library’s
website, look for a “subject guide,” or a listing of databases sorted by subject. You may
need a username and password to access this portion of your library’s website, so talk
to your librarian if you run into any problems.

Let’s get started by looking for sources for an academic article on the life of the Russian
poet Anna Akhmatova. We’ll use the Library of Congress’s website for this search.

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JSTOR Research Basics for Students Module 1: Effective Searching | Lesson 1: Using Library Tools
Think about your topic: What field or fields does it fall within? No database has
everything, so look for a collection whose focus is likely to include your topic. You’re
looking for information about a poet, so it makes sense to look for sources that focus
on poetry or writing. Under the Arts and Humanities heading, you’ll see a link to the
Language and Literature section. This is a good place to start your search because you
already know these sources are likely to be relevant to your topic.

In some cases, it can also be helpful to narrow down your sources by type. For example,
since you’re looking for broad, general information about Anna Akhmatova’s life, a
biography would be a good starting place. If you were trying to find critical reviews of her
work, however, you might want to narrow your search to focus on book reviews or essays
of literary criticism.

Predict
Your next step is to look at the specific tools available and predict which ones are most
likely to contain the information you want. Some libraries allow you to do a single search
that searches multiple databases, but many libraries do not—in which case you will
need to search each database individually. Either way, your time is important. Limiting
your search to the most relevant tools for your topic will give you a better-focused set of
results to choose from.

Here’s the list of the library’s Language and Literature resources. Even within this
subtopic, there are nearly 100 resources! However, as you look through the descriptions,
it’s clear that many of these will not be useful sources for your topic. You are looking for
biographical information on a Russian poet, so it’s not likely that “African Writers Series”
or the “Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature” will have much for
you—these databases focus on writers from other locations.

Some of the more general sources look like they could be of use for your search. With
over a half-million biographies, “Biography in Context” seems like a useful place to look
for the information you’re seeking. So does “Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry,” which
includes biographies. You may also be able to use the “Dictionary of Literary Biography.”

There are also a few more specific tools that might be promising for this topic. Look at
the “Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore” and the “Russian
Virtual Library.” These databases focus only on Russian literature, so they would be likely
to contain some of the information you’re looking for.

Rank
Now that you’ve selected a few places to start searching, take a moment to rank them
in order of their usefulness for your specific topic and needs. If you start with the best
database for this particular search, you might just find what you need, and never need to
look through the other databases you selected.

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JSTOR Research Basics for Students Module 1: Effective Searching | Lesson 1: Using Library Tools
From the set of nearly 100 Language and Literature databases, you found five that
looked like they might be useful:

» Biography in Context

» Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry

» Dictionary of Literary Biography

» Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore

» Russian Virtual Library

In most cases, it makes sense to start with the resources that are most closely related
to your topic. So ranking these databases in order, you have:

1. Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore and Russian

Virtual Library: These sources are both specific to Russian literature and are the
likeliest places to find good information about a Russian poet.

2. Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry and Dictionary of Literary Biography:

These two sources are one notch up from a general biography database. Columbia
Granger is specific to poetry and contains biographies, and the Dictionary of
Literary Biography is made up entirely of biographies of writers.

3. Biography in Context: This is a general database of biographies that doesn’t

focus specifically on Russia or literature, so you should save it for last.

Knowledge
After you’ve found the best resources for your search and ranked them in order, it’s
time to think about the practicalities of starting your research.

First, make sure you have knowledge you need to use a given resource. You can do
this by reviewing the descriptions of your selected databases to make sure they’re
appropriate for your research. For example, let’s take a look again at the Russian
Virtual Library, one of the top-ranked choices from the last step.

What does this description tell you? It’s free and intended for a variety of different
types of users; that’s all good information. But then you get to the last sentence and
discover that it’s in Russian. Unless you’re fortunate enough to be fluent, you don’t
have the necessary knowledge for this to be a useful resource.

Access
It’s also important to be sure that you can actually get access to the resources you’ve
decided on. In some cases, a single username and password will get you access to
your library’s subject guides and all library supported databases. In other cases, you

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JSTOR Research Basics for Students Module 1: Effective Searching | Lesson 1: Using Library Tools
may need different login information for different resources. It’s a good idea to talk to
your librarian about how best to access your library’s resources from both in and outside
of the library building, as there are different procedures.

Some resources are freely accessible from anywhere, with no login required. Some
are accessible from outside the library, or “remotely,” but you need a username and
password to use them. And some resources may only be accessed from a computer on
the library network, or “on-site,” meaning that you’ll need to make a trip to the library
to use them. This isn’t a bad thing, and the information you find will often make the trip
worthwhile. But knowing this will help you plan how much time and energy each part of
your research might take.

You should also look at the kind of content the database offers. Some databases provide
the full text of every single article that appears as a search result. Other databases
do not provide any actual articles, just the citations themselves along with abstracts
or summaries, which can be helpful in deciding if the article has the information you
need. For these types of databases, you’ll need to talk to your librarian about how to
access the articles you find. Many databases provide a mix of full-text articles, abstracts,
and citations. Know what your database offers so that you can plan your research
accordingly.

Ask a Librarian
You can always contact your librarian with questions about how to access the library’s
resources, whether it’s finding the full text of a specific article or figuring out what
database to start your search with. Their main job is to help connect you with the
information you’re looking for. Many libraries offer reference assistance by email and live
chat. Some are even available 24 hours a day. It’s easier than ever to get in touch with an
expert who can make your research process shorter and smoother.

Next Steps

» You will complete a few practice activities related to what you’ve just learned.

» Then, it’s on to Lesson 2, Smart Searching Methods.

» At the end of Module 1, you’ll take an assessment.

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JSTOR Research Basics for Students Module 1: Effective Searching | Lesson 1: Using Library Tools