E-mail   Print

• Walter Schroeder Library
• Find It!
• About the Library
• Services
• Resources
  • Course Reserves and Electronic Reserves
  • Style Guides
  • Print, Scan and Copy
  • Tutorials
    • START
    • AE Tutorial
    • BE Tutorial
    • Google
    • Nursing Orientation
    • Patent Searching
    • Wikipedia
    • Videos
    • Medical Informatics Resources
  • Codes and Technical Standards
  • Master's Thesis and Final Capstone Report Lists
  • In-House Print Periodical Holdings List
  • A Few Good Websites
  • Center for BioMolecular Modeling Lending Library
• Library Help
• What's New
• Archives
• Search the Library

Basic Steps

 

Considerable time can be saved in doing library research if a few simple preliminary steps are carried out before you actually plunge into the research resources.

First, identify what you would consider to be the title of an ideal journal article or an ideal book title. Do you know if such a document exists? Have you seen it? If not, use these ideal titles to generate a list of keywords.

Second, write up a list of keywords associated with your problem definition. Don't hesitate to list concepts and broad subject-areas that are implicated. List professional jargon associated with your problem definition. Next, write a brief description of your project that could be understood by a layperson with little or no knowledge of your topic. Use this description to generate additional keywords, if possible.

Third, be sure to learn about the library databases that are available to you. Before searching them, quickly scan descriptions in order to assure that you are searching the appropriate resource. Quickly scan any help documentation. Library databases are not search engines. To effectively retrieve results, databases should be searched in compliance with their individual search languages. Understand the concept of controlled vocabulary versus keyword searching. Whenever possible, use controlled vocabulary in a true database. The START Tutorial offers an excellent summary of these concepts.

Fourth, quickly identify any professional associations, organizations, or groups that may be related to your project topic. Many of these organizations produce standards, sponsor important research, and have unique libraries and information centers. Start to find organizations by using the following three resources:

• Look up organizations in the Encyclopedia of Associations. This resource is available as an online database called Associations Unlimited. Click here to go to the connect page. This resource is also a multi-volume print set available in the library. Its call number is: REF AS 22 .E5 1999.
• Look up organizations on the Internet.

Fifth, quickly follow a basic strategy for locating information. Stay focused. Use this tutorial as a map. Search for books first, then articles, then technical information, and then web resources. Study results to obtain new ideas for searching and new search terms.

A Sample Research Topic

 

This library tutorial will demonstrate library research on the topic of high definition television (a topic suggested by Dr. Reyer).

 

 

• Initial keywords: high definition television (I don't yet know enough about the topic to suggest other keywords)

 

 

• Possibly relevant organizations (located via the sources listed above):

 

 

• The Advanced Television Systems Committee
  • An international organization that is establishing voluntary technical standards for advanced television systems, including digital high definition television.

 

• Another possible keyword phrase suggested by the ATSC description: digital television

 

 

• A check of a standard reference work (Newton's Telcom Dictionary) provides the following definition:

 

HDTV is a system standard for transmitting a TV signal with far greater resolution than specified by the current NTSC standard. NTSC was developed by the National Television System Committee and is the standard for analog TV broadcast and reception in North America. HDTV employs a wide aspect ratio of 16:9 (horizontal:vertical), offering approximately twice the horizontal and twice the vertical emitted resolution specified by the NTSC standard. The total number of pixels, therefore, is more than four times that of NTSC. In December 1996, the FCC adopted standards for digital ATV (Advanced TV), the successor to the HDTV concept. Those standards, which are voluntary, largely follow the recommendations of the ATSC.