Academic Research Help

The library can help students with academic research papers, with ease. Assume that you are writing a paper on the success of daily deal websites like Groupon, for a class. By going to http://www.slcl.org, then selecting the tab for Research, then Databases A-Z, then Academic OneFile, you can enter the term "daily deals" in the search box. There are 65 results. Note that Groupon is a keyword for three results and cited in five documents. Altering the search to find "Groupon" in the entire document yields 62 results, with 27 having Groupon as the keyword. The beauty of databases such as this are that a researcher can limit the results to full-text articles and to peer-reviewed journals. In this case, the search results came from, among other periodicals, the Journal of Internet Law, Information Today, CFO Magazine, and the International Journal of E-Business Research. These journals may be difficult or impossible to find in print at the researcher's home or school library. The beauty of the databases is that they allow students to do sophisticated searches and review the latest journals in full text. They allow students to save time on research and focus on writing and analysis.

--Harry C., Reference

Mobile Databases

You've heard that the library has a new mobile app, but did you know that you could access databases on it? Many of the library’s databases can be accessed from the “Online Databases” section of the SLCL Mobile app. Below is a description of each database option and an example of how you might find it useful!

Ebscohost offers access to the databases Academic Search Elite and MasterFile Premier; to search both, touch Select All. Search terms are entered in the search box at the top of the page; touch Search Options to limit your results to a certain publication or date. Be aware, to view an article on your device you will need to have an app that opens PDF files (ex. Adobe PDF Reader). Use this mobile database to find a “Consumer Reports” product review while shopping.

Novelist Mobile offers information about books and authors. Novelist has a basic search box at the top of the page. To narrow your results, touch Search Options and scroll down to Document Type. There you have options such as Author (to find a list of their works) or Read-alikes (to find similar authors). Use this in the stacks to find out which book came first in a series.

Two of the databases, Gale/Cengage and Mango require you to download an additional app to use them. Touching Gale/Cengage will automatically open the Gale App (called Access My Library in the App store). Pick a St. Louis County Library location on the library map and touch View Gale Resources. Touch Update My Library and then Gale Databases. Over 20 databases are available. Use this to look up ingredients for a recipe in Culinary Arts Collection while at the grocery store.

To use Mango, the language database, you will need to have already created a Mango account through the database on the library’s website and use that to log into the Mango app. Unfortunately, Mango is currently only available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Waiting in line at the DMV? Log into this app and learn Italian while you wait.

The last two mobile databases are Worldbook and Worldcat. Worldbook is an easy-to-use mobile version of the online encyclopedia. Use this in place of Wikipedia! Worldcat, the multi-library catalog, offers less search options than the online version but uses GPS to show books at libraries close to your location.

--Susie B., Reference

Research Papers – Narrow Down Your Results

Do you need help writing a high school or college level research paper and are not sure where to begin? Try “Academic Search Elite” [EBSCO] database. This database contains full-text articles – including peer-reviewed ones – on a broad range of subjects for more than 2,100 journals.

What’s a peer-reviewed article? When an article is peer-reviewed, it means that it has been read by experts in that particular subject. The expert examines the article for mistakes and ensures that it is of the highest quality before it goes to publication. Frequently teachers will ask that articles cited in a paper be peer-reviewed. By simply checking the peer-reviewed box before you search the database, you can examine only these types of articles.

No one has time to read thousands of articles. Learn how to narrow down your search results! For example, a keyword search for “dogs” will produce results ranging from the dates 1908 to 2012. When I searched for “dogs” it yielded 41,717 articles to be exact (at the time of writing this).

Most teachers require the most recent articles for your paper. To sort results by date, use the scrolling bar on the left side of the page. Instead of searching for results between 1908 and 2012, try searching from 2010 to 2012. You’ll find that the results are easier to examine this way!

If I want to narrow down my “dogs” search further, I can check the “full-text” tab, the “peer-reviewed” tab, and narrow the dates between 2010 and 2012. Now instead of 40,000+ articles, I have a much more manageable 500+ articles. Let’s take it one step further and narrow it by type of dog. Try using the same search criteria as above and typing dogs AND poodle. You receive 6 results. That’s a lot easier to read than 40,000!

--Connie D., Rock Road Branch

It Means the World to Me

One may be wondering, which of St. Louis County Library's many Databases is the one that every library user should know. As this may be quite subjective, I would like to share my favorite Database: Worldcat

Worldcat literally “means the world to me” because it is the largest inclusive library catalog containing more than 246 million different records and over 1.77 billion physical and digital assets in more than 470 languages, included in all public and academic libraries in the United States.

If you want to know whether a book, a DVD or any other item was ever owned by a library or whether it forthcoming, please check Worldcat before you give up.

--Roz K., Jamestown Bluffs Branch