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Information candy

Library and Internet Research: Online, Offline, All Around the Town A faculty presentation by the Ursula C. Schwerin Library, New York City Technical College, held on March 20, 2001. Information candy. Researchers feel like a kid in a candy store with an unlimited amount of money .

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Information candy

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  1. Library and Internet Research:Online, Offline, All Around the TownA faculty presentation by the Ursula C. Schwerin Library,New York City Technical College,held on March 20, 2001

  2. Information candy Researchers feel like a kid in a candy store with an unlimited amount of money ...

  3. Information candy Give a kid $30 to spend in a candy store … The kid would buy as much as possible and then pig out.

  4. Information candy Are you like that kid? • When doing research or just using the Internet, many adults go bonkers and end up annoyed, disgusted and unproductive.

  5. Information candy • Our aim is to make the research process not only easy and productive but satisfying and enriching.

  6. Ever feel overwhelmed doing research? • Issues of learning new technologies • New formats for information: info panic • Too much: info glut

  7. Ever feel overwhelmed doing research? • Keeping up with computer technology is stressful for 67 percent of US professors, according to a 1999 study by the University of California, LA. Further, they find computer-related stress greater than teaching loads, felt by 62 percent of academics, or publishing pressure, felt by 50 percent.

  8. Ever feel overwhelmed doing research? • The study found that while 87 percent of college professors use computers to send email and 85 percent use them to write memos or letter, only 35 percent use the Net to conduct research and 38 percent use computers to create classroom presentations.

  9. The result • Inappropriate information; • Doing too much work; • Missing the best information.

  10. The result • Imagine how undergraduates who have never used a library, a computer, or the Internet feel!

  11. Keep It Simple Solutions: • Quality not quantity; • Know the big picture; • Expect the unexpected; • Research is a life-long learning skill.

  12. The world of information • Traditional library materials; • “Licensed” resources: full-text databases and other sources that CUNY pays for; • Internet guides and experts; • Content websites; • Online discussion groups; • “Invisible web.”

  13. Types of research • Finding specific facts: looking up information; • Getting background information on broader topics: exploring and learning; • Exhaustive research: everything and anything; • Focused research: best and most appropriate information resources.

  14. Information literacy at a glance--knowing: • How to locate information venues such as libraries and the Internet; • The tools for research; • How to use these tools; • How to retrieve research; • How to evaluate and incorporate research into learning including critical thinking about information sources.

  15. Ursula C. Schwerin Library Welcome to a brief overview of City Tech’s library!

  16. Ursula C. Schwerin Library The library's holdings include more than: • 175,000 books; • Over 600 current periodical subscriptions; • Nearly 5500 audiovisual items; • Extensive vertical file collections of pamphlets, pictures, menus, corporate annual reports, and career information.

  17. Ursula C. Schwerin Library Online resources include • CD-ROMs; • Our website; • E-books; • E-journals; • Databases.

  18. Ursula C. Schwerin Library: website http://library.nyctc.cuny.edu • Explore our virtual exhibits and guides; • Tutorials and other learning resources; regularly updated.

  19. Ursula C. Schwerin Library: website http://library.nyctc.cuny.edu • Contact library faculty; • Learn how to get access to electronic resources from home; • Website content regularly updated.

  20. Library website: for faculty Our website now has a special section just for faculty!

  21. Ursula C. Schwerin Library Another key resource in the library … Library faculty.

  22. Library guide • A wonderful training tool for student retention of library tours; or • A quick self-guided tour of the library.

  23. Don’t forget about paper Encyclopedias and other reference works are often the best place to begin the research process.

  24. Books, books, books • METRO pass provides access to local libraries; • Interlibrary loan on a national level; • CUNY open access policy for all students and faculty.

  25. Finding books (and other materials) • Two versions of CUNY online catalog: older DPAC software and web-version

  26. E-books netLibrary Books can be downloaded onto your computer and read offline!

  27. Finding periodical articles • Paper indexes on main floor of library • Online indexes providing access to both citations and full-text

  28. Finding periodical articles Our core collection of resources: • Online indexes providing access to citations and full-text These are the so-called licensed resources that CUNY pays considerable amounts of $ for!

  29. The core of the core: Infotrac Expanded Academic Lexis-Nexis Find both on the CUNY licensed resources page. Finding periodical articles

  30. Browsing for periodical articles • Scholarly e-journals on the Net (free) • Browsing online: JSTOR

  31. Browsing for periodical articles Keep up with new articles in your discipline by browsing journal tables of contents online. Current Contents Connect allows searching and browsing of journal literature in all scholarly disciplines. Look for the link to CCC on the right-hand column of the CUNY Licensed Resources page.

  32. Browsing for periodical articles This service allows the user to select databases by broad discipline area: • Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences • Social & Behavioral Sciences • Clinical Medicine • Life Sciences • Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences • Engineering, Computing & Technology • Arts & Humanities

  33. More browsing • Don’t forget to use bibliographies both in books and on the Net. See U. Houston Libraries: Indexes, Abstracts, Bibliographies, and Table of Contents Services

  34. More browsing • Many professional organizations maintain archives of their newsletter and other publications on their websites.

  35. Don’t forget A wealth of information can be found on professional organization websites including: • Conference information; • Call for papers; • New publications; • News; • Job listings.

  36. Research strategies: Writing as planning • Write out your query as an abstract in order to better define and clarify it; • Write down keywords; • Write down synonyms and variants for keywords and repeat searches with those variants.

  37. Research strategies: time management • Evaluate how much time you have and how extensive the research needs to be; • Prioritize research resources; • Consider value of respective resources.

  38. Research strategies: get expert advice • Discuss your preliminary research with an expert: a librarian or a subject expert.

  39. Research strategies: discuss your query with peers • Find an Internet discussion group related to your research topic; • Join it and; • Post your query.

  40. Research strategies: discuss your query with peers How do can Internet discussion groups be identified? • Through websites of professional and other organizations; • http://www.liszt.com Liszt is a browsable and searchable directory of Internet discussion groups.

  41. Research strategies: discuss your query with peers How do Internet discussion groups work? • Some are web-enabled: postings, replies and archives are all done via a webpage; • Most are via email. Many discussion groups run on a program called listserv. Listserv is so common that Internet discussion groups are often called listservs.

  42. Research strategies: discuss your query with peers How does a listserv work? • Send a message to the server [the computer that handles the automation of the discussion group] to join; • You will get an email back confirming that you have joined the list [group discussion];

  43. Research strategies: Discuss with peers How does a listserv work? • Some groups have a moderator who screen who can join the group; • Now, a listserv member can post messages to the list [the people in the discussion group]; • The list and the server each has a distinct email address.

  44. Research strategies • Consider presentation of information, e.g. do you need webpages for online teaching ...

  45. Research strategies • Online research is NOT about search engines; • Quality, not quantity: stay focused.

  46. Search engines just comb the surface • A Jan 31 2001 New York Times article reports that current search engines have access to less than one percent of all the pages on the Web.

  47. Web-rage? • A Jan. 2001 survey by Roper Starch Worldwide found that on average, users get angry and frustrated after 12 minutes of fruitless searching. For 7 percent of respondents, it only takes 3 minutes before web-rage strikes.

  48. Web-rage? • The vast majority (86 percent) of those polled by Roper Starch felt an efficient means of searching for information on the Web should be in place. Almost a third of Internet users said they spent about two hours per week searching for the information they needed, while 71 percent felt frustrated from searching, regardless of whether their search was successful or not.

  49. Internet guides • Use expert websites: these websites are guides to all websites and other Internet resources in an area; • Find them by going to The Argus Clearinghouse.

  50. Search engines and directories • Yahoo • The web organized by intelligent human beings into an orderly whole: directory browsing. Limited number of websites. • Altavista • The old dependable search engine. Has basic and advanced searching capabilities and a variety of nice specialized search features including image searching.

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