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WISER Humanities: Key Search Skills

WISER Humanities: Key Search Skills. Friday 3rd November 2006 Judy Reading and Hilla Wait. Structure of today’s session. Presentation outlining useful search strategies Demonstration of databases to show how these strategies might work in practice Time to explore with assistance available.

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WISER Humanities: Key Search Skills

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  1. WISER Humanities: Key Search Skills Friday 3rd November 2006 Judy Reading and Hilla Wait

  2. Structure of today’s session • Presentation outlining useful search strategies • Demonstration of databases to show how these strategies might work in practice • Time to explore with assistance available

  3. OxLIP • Oxford Library Information Platform – our gateway to electronic resources • Subject and title index • Library catalogues including OLIS • Bibliographic databases • Full-text databases • Internet sites (subject gateways)

  4. Accessing OxLIP • Access from any Oxford University computer • If access is needed from a non-University PC: • Should be arranged before leaving Oxford • Register for a personal Athens account • If database does not use Athens contact OUCS to arrange remote access to the Oxford University network

  5. Where to start? • Decide what you are searching for before you start. • Check your library for introductory texts or overviews of research in an area. Look at the bibliographies. • Look at introductory electronic sources such as encyclopaedias. • Then spend some time thinking about the topic in more depth – you may find a mind-map or spider diagram useful • Make sure you have a system for storing the references you identify – maybe e-mail, or Refworks or an old-fashioned card index

  6. Locating original sources on the internet • Start with OxLIP and the subject menus • Can use portals such as the Intute: Arts and Humanities gateway http://www.intute.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/ • Can use services like Google which provide keyword searches – look at the advanced search options • Could tryInternet Detective Tutorialhttp://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/

  7. Locating current research • Find and join mailing lists (see http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk) and use directories to locate active organisations and individuals • Ideas may be first expressed in conferences and recorded in conference proceedings (Various sources of information for this – see OCLC Proceedings) • New research is reported in dissertations (find listed in library catalogues, Dissertation abstracts (N.America) and Index to Theses (UK)) • Current awareness services (e.g. Zetoc, My TD-Net)

  8. Keyword & subject searching • Keyword searching • Searches for terms anywhere in the field or record • Useful as a starting place but results can be less relevant • Subject indexes • Where possible tap into the subject headings or thesauri provided by the databases

  9. Combining search terms • Boolean logic • Boolean connectors : AND, OR, NOT, NEAR • AND to narrow the search • OR to broaden the search (synonyms) • Symbols for wildcards and truncation • ? for a single character • wom?n will find woman or women • s?epticism will find British and American spelling • * for truncation or variant spellings • politi* for politic, politics, political, politically etc.

  10. OR, AND, NOT, NEAR

  11. Tackling an unfamiliar database • Check the coverage of a database to see if it includes what you want • You can use cross-searching for some collections of databases to identify concentrations of useful references • Use the help screens provided – check the specific conventions (e.g. do they use &, +, or “and”) • Use any subject indexes provided • Databases now often offer similar functions but you may have to delve a bit to see how they do it compared with one you are familiar with

  12. Evaluating search results • You may need to widen or focus your search depending on what you find • How relevant is it to you? May need to find relevance in related work. • Evaluate articles to establish how reliable the information contained e.g. is it based on research evidence – what sample size was used etc. • Important to evaluate for – Provenance, Currency, Objectivity, Accuracy

  13. Putting all this into practice • Searching for a known article • Example: Philosophers Index • Developing the search • Searching for the unknown • Keywords and subject headings • Abstracts • Full text searching • Examples: JStor, Past Masters

  14. And Finally • Getting help • Hands-on • Questions • Evaluation forms

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