U S I N G L I B R A R Y D A T A B A S E S C A N M A K E S T U D Y I N G , W R I T I N G P A P E R S A N D D O I N G P R O J E C T S A L O T E A S I E R ! T H E Y R E A L L Y A R E S I M P L E T O U S E O N C E Y O U K N O W A L I T T L E B I T A B O U T T H E M .

W E W I L L F O C U S O N U S I N G A C A D E M I C S E A R C H P R E M I E R . I T I S O N E O F T H E L I B R A R Y ’ S M O S T U S E F U L R E S O U R C E S . O N C E Y O U L E A R N A F E W T E C H N I Q U E S Y O U ’ L L B E A B L E T O A P P L Y T H E M T O S E A R C H I N G O T H E R S O U R C E S T O O !

Welcometo EMCC Library’s

Database Basics

In this presentation you will learn:

What library databases are

When and why to use them

How to do a basic search

Database tools that refine your search

Sorting your search results

Saving and sharing articles

Click the stars for shortcuts to review each topic.The home icon will return you to this page.

So What is a Database?

Databases are simply collections of information that have been arranged to make searching easy and efficient.

A good example is the contact list on your cell phone. You can enter people’s numbers and find them again either alphabetically, by speed dial settings or categories like “family” or “school”.

Why are library databases special?

Libraries pay subscription fees for their databases

The material they contain is not free on the web

Search tools help you find what you need

Information quality has been judged by experts

Some databases gather a lot of sources on one topic

Others cover a broad range of subjects

Whole articles can often be read immediately

Academic Search Premier

Academic Search Premier is a database produced by EBSCO and covers a broad range of topics. It includes more than 8000 newspaper, magazine, and journal titles ranging from 1975 to the present. Most Mississippi public libraries subscribe to it. As a student you can use it anywhere you have an internet connection through EMCC’s library.

Why use a database?

If you have a question to answer or a point you want to make, sometimes you have to dig for a little information to fill out your argument.

Isn’t an internet search faster?

Well, yes and no. You can find a lot of information very quickly. Finding useful information for your project can be a bit harder.

Winner!

The right tools for the job

A library database won’t give you quite so many sources, but you don’t need to worry about whether or not they’re accurate. It will also have features that help you sort and manage the information sources you find.

Scholarly Journals

Nationally Respected Newspapers

Indexes Content updated daily

Advanced Search Tools

Getting Started

When you begin a basic search on Academic Search Premier this is what you see. Click the stars to read more about some important features.

Save yourself some time

Unlike an internet search, you don’t have to get a big list of everything and sort it out yourself. Eliminate what you know you don’t want before you search. Click stars for details.

Know before you type

There are a few tricks you should know before typing in a keyword. These definitely work on Academic Search Premier. Other databases use very similar commands, and they might even help on internet searches. Try them!

Boolean terms AND, OR, and NOT should be in upper case letters. Except for these the

program usually ignores

small words and

capitalization.

Use quotation marks to search for phrases. If you

don’t the words will be searched for as if the term AND was between them.

“Rescue Dogs” will search for information on

specially trained dogs.Rescue Dogs will find items using those two

words separately.

Parentheses can nest searches. The operation inside them is

done first. (rivers OR lakes) AND “native plants”

finds information on fresh water, then looks at

plants.

Wild Cards and Truncation

When there are closely related words with different endings, sometimes you want to search under all of them. Take the words child, children, and childhood for example. Instead if typing in all three words, you can enter:

This is called “truncation”! One little asterisk tells the program to search for all variations at once. An asterisk can also stand in for whole words inside a phrase.

A “Wildcard” uses the “?”or “#” symbols to replace or imply letters within words.

Wom?n will search for both woman and women.Colo#r will search for our word color and the British colour.

Putting it all together

Ok, now it’s time to use that search box! Lets say we’ve been studying about teenage obesity in the United States. We need information for a class presentation about how the problem is viewed in other places. If we apply the tips we’ve seen, our search terms will look something like this:

(adolescent OR teen*) AND obesity NOT “United States”

We will use the default settings on the rest of the page for now.

Search Results

Wow! More than 4000 articles are a lot to look at!

Using the slider and check boxes on the left side of the results screen will have a dramatic effect.

We will choose “Full Text” articles only. Items from scholarly journals which are less than 5 years old will probably be plenty to work with.

Refining your results

Now there are almost 3000 fewer things to review. That’s an improvement.

Continue scrolling down the left side of the results page and you will find other facets to use as limiters.

If you choose one and think it eliminates too many articles just click its button in the “limiters” section to reverse it.

Our presentation is going to be on the psychological impacts of obesity, so we will choose that as a limiter.

Manageable Results

Now we have 17 articles to review for possible use in our project. They’re all available in full text so we can see them right away.

We also know they are up to date, accurate, and won’t be cluttered with advertising or other distractions.

That’s really great! Now let’s look at the rest of the results page and see what other tools we can make use of.

Making the most of your results

Even after you’ve found your list of articles, Academic Search Premier still offers more research help. Click the stars for details on some of them.

Saving Searches

There are some benefits to signing in for a free account. Saving your search results is easy. There is a link to your search results which you can email to yourself on another computer or share with others if you are working in a group.

EBSCO can even inform you when new articles on your topic are added to the database!

You can find this tab on the upper right-hand corner of your results list.

Saving Articles

When you select an item from your results list, this tool bar will appear on the right-hand side of your screen. Some of these features, like “Add to Folder” and “Create Note” aredesigned to work with an account.

You can print, email or save your articles without signing in if you prefer.

“Cite” is another great time-saving tool. It will give you a proper bibliographic citation that you can cut and paste into your finished paper or presentation!

Thank you for reading EMCC’sDatabase Basics

W E H O P E Y O U F O U N D T H I S O V E R V I E W O F A C A D E M I C S E A R C H P R E M I E R H E L P F U L .

P L E A S E F E E L F R E E T O C O N T A C T T H E L I B R A R Y I F Y O U H A V E Q U E S T I O N S .

G O O D L U C K I N Y O U R C O L L E G E C A R E E R A N D R E M E M B E R W E A R E H E R E T O H E L P I F Y O U

N E E D U S !

Powerpoint Presentation developed by Lisa Justis, 2 May 2012