Module 2: Information Sources and Tools

Module 2: Information SourcesAdvanced Information Literacy

Lara Skelly

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” - Frank Zappa

Looking at things from the perspective of thesis/dissertation writing Search Strategy Information Sources & Tools Evaluating Information Bibliographic Referencing Social, Economic & Legal Issues

Advanced Information Literacy

Today

Learn advanced features in the CPUT catalogue Create a list of databases/tools to search Use advanced features in common databases

AimsModule 2: Information Sources

Advanced feature in the Catalogue: Your account

Click on ‘My Library Card’ to login to your account.

Advanced feature in the Catalogue: Your account

Type in your staff/student number, and your date of birth as the password.

Advanced feature in the Catalogue: Your account

You can renew your books by clicking on ‘Loans’ and see what books you have taken out before by clicking ‘Loans History List’

If you can’t find the book in CPUT Libraries, you can search Worldcat to see which library might have it.

These items can be requested though Interlibrary Loans. Ask your Faculty Librarian for more information.

Worldcat: books from anywhere

Bibliographic databases only have abstracts and the bibliographic detail (bibliographic detail is basically the citation)

Full-text databases: contain the full-text articles Hybrid databases are a mix between bibliographic

and full-text databases Citation databases include details of the citations

listed in the articles and uses this detail to create links between them.

Types of databases

Differ in functions available Differ in content – journals, books, reports, etc… Differ in depth – some might cover many years,

some might cover fewer Differ in breadth – some might cover many topics,

some might be very restricted

Not all databases are equal

Advanced features in Academic Search Premier

Advanced features in Academic Search Premier include: Subject terms Source types Cited References Alerts

Academic Search Premier: Subject Terms

Click on subject terms

Academic Search Premier: Subject Terms

You will see the subject terms. These terms have been standardized to group spelling and term variations together.

Academic Search Premier: Source Types

You can limit by source types to find trade publications, and other types of reports

Academic Search Premier: Cited References

Sometime you’ll see a ‘Cited References’ link.

Article A

~~~~~~~

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

Bibliography:

Reference 1

Reference 2…

Academic Search Premier: Cited References

Article B~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bibliography:Reference 1Reference 2: Article AReference 3

Article C~~~~Bibliography:Reference 1: Article A

A cited reference will allow you to find articles that cite your article of interest. For example, from Article A, you would be able to find Article B and C because they both cite Article A.

Academic Search Premier: Alerts

Alerts let you know if the database has new results on your search. Click ‘Share’ and select the alert method you prefer.

Advanced features in Scopus include:- Cited references- Analyse results- Alerts

Advanced features in Scopus

Scopus: cited references

Scopus also has theCited references feature.

Scopus: analyse results

By clicking on ‘Analyze results’ you’ll get an overview of your articles.

Scopus: analyse resultsYou can get an overview by author, source title, and some others. This is a great way to explore the literature in your field and find out who the top academics/journals/countries are.

Scopus: alerts

You can set alerts in Scopus too.

Advanced features in Google Scholar include:- Cited references- Alerts

Advanced features in Google Scholar

Google Scholar: cited references

You can also do a cited reference search in Google Scholar

Google Scholar: alerts

Creating an alert sends you new results, so that you don’t need to rerun your search to keep up to date.

Finding journal on the A-Z

Selecting the ‘Subjects’ tab give you the option of browsing for journal titles on a specific topic.

Finding journal on the A-Z

Here is the example of ‘General Works’. You can see the number of journals that fall under a specific subject.

Your discipline might have specific resources that could be useful

For example, Economists might want economic data

Contact your Faculty Librarian to find out more

Discipline specific resources

Complete the checklist of databases to search Keep a search record

Exercise 3

(Basic) CPUT Online Information Literacy modulehttp://www.cput.ac.za/dev/library/information_literacy/index.html

This presentation was based on one created by Janine Lockhart.

Thank you!

Bibliography and acknowledgements