Information Literacy (LIBR 2100)

What are library databases?

• Library databases can be accessed through the library’s LibGuides or through the databases A-Z list.

• Databases are subscription-based, and may be either multidisciplinary (e.g. Academic Search Premier) or subject-specific (e.g. PsycINFO).

• Databases collect articles from various academic journals and allow you to search them all in one place, rather than browsing journals separately.

What will you find?

• Mostly articles from academic journals.

• Some databases will include non-academic resources, like trade magazines and corporate reports.

• Other databases are specifically for primary source material.

Pros

• Good for discipline-specific searching – can use a subject database to eliminate irrelevant results.

• Many instructors will request scholarly journals for assignments. Databases are the best places to find these.

Cons

• Databases made by different vendors may look and feel different from one another, so it may be difficult to switch from one to another.
   
• Some databases do not handle plain or natural language very well. It takes practice to develop effective search strategies
   
• Subject headings for similar terms or concepts vary among the databases

Article Databases are also referred to as Library Databases or Research Databases.

Knowing the difference between a database and a search engine is an important search basic. This clip from the Wellington Medical & Health Sciences Library, explains the differences and when to use each tool.

Visit the Mount Library home page:
www.msvu.ca/library

The links Guides A-Z and Databases A-Z are located under the Novanet Discovery search box. Both are routes to finding the library databases 

• 

  Guides A-Z

 Not sure which article database to use for your topic?

1. Click Guides A-Z
2. Pick your subject area
3. Suggested article databases are listed on the articles page.

• Database A-Z

Are you familiar with the names of the article databases you need? 

1. Click Databases A-Z
   This page shows an alphabetical list of all types of academic research tools, including article databases.  
2. Scroll or search for the database you need.

Optional: View only article databases 

• • Choose Articles from the All Types drop-down menu located at the top of the list.
  • Only article databases will be shown.

Optional: View subjects

• • Chose your program area from the Subjects drop-down menu located at the top of the list. 
  • Best bet databases are listed at the top of the Subject page.

Using AND

Using OR

Combining AND / OR

You can search for Privacy AND (Social Media OR Facebook OR Twitter), but it works best to narrow your search using the AND between search boxes and broaden your search by using the OR within search boxes as shown in the image below.

This expanded search results included the article, Control your Facebook: An analysis of online privacy literacy. This article did not appear on the first page of results when using just privacy and "social media"

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Using NOT

Less often used but still very useful, NOT can be used for excluding terms that might otherwise be included in your results. E.g. if you were interested in the marketing of products of Apple the company rather than apple the fruit, you can use:  Marketing AND Apple NOT fruit.

Try these interactive tutorials from Colorado State University Libraries:

• Boolean Searching (basics) [transcript]
   
• Advanced Boolean Searching [transcript]
   
• Truncation [transcript]

Thanks to Colorado State University for sharing their tutorials

Click on the "next" button to begin.

Boolean Searching (Basic)

• View  the transcript (opens in new tab)

Colorado State University (n.d.) Boolean searching [Interactive tutorial]. Retrieved from http://lib.colostate.edu/tutorials/

Thanks to Colorado State University for sharing their tutorials

Click on the "next" button to begin.

Truncation

• View  the transcript (opens in new tab)

Colorado State University (n.d.) Truncation [Interactive tutorial]. Retrieved from http://lib.colostate.edu/tutorials/

Most of us are already familiar with results page from online shopping. Database results pages have a lot of familiar features

1.  The total number results you received.
2. A list of items that match what you searched for.  The title is usually a link that can be clicked to see more details such as the abstract.
3. The ability to sort your results by different criteria like date, author and relevancy. Sorting tends to be near the top of the page.
4. Many databases also include the ability to filter your results with some of the same subsets of information collected by the database like dates, type of document and subjects . Filtering tends to be either on the right or left column of the results page. Filters works with the search results to examine a smaller portion of these results that meet a specific criteria. 

As you can see from the screen shots of results in EBSCO Academic Search Premier and ProQuest Research Library, these options are present but appear in different parts of the page.

Most databases offer an advanced search screen that allows you to easily set the search filters at the beginning of your search session.

The most frequently used filters are:

• Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
  This filter removes non-scholarly publications such as newspaper articles, magazines and some reports. This is a useful filter if your assignment requires scholarly or academic articles.
• Published Date
  This filter allows you to set the dates for when the articles were published. This is a useful filter to use if your assignment specifies the use of recent articles published in the last five years.

Caution: Filters reduce the total number of results. 

When you activate a filter you may exclude results that are relevant to your topic

Proceed with caution when using the following options:

1. Full Text
   This provides only the full from EBSCO. The Mount Library subscribes to thousands of other journals from other vendors and publishers. You may be missing out on important results if you use the Full Text Only option.
2. Number Of Pages
   Most scholarly articles are longer than 10 pages. If you use this filter to retrieve only short articles you are missing  many scholarly articles relevant to your topic.

• View Transcript on the YouTube video page under .... More

View Transcript on the YouTube video page under .... More

Subject headings are an established set of word or phrases that are used to describe or classify articles in a database. 

Unlike keywords which are a match made by the computer between what you entered and what exists in the item records (authors, titles, abstracts, etc.), the subject headings are applied by staff employed by the database companies. The subject headings represent the main essence of the articles. 

Advantages

1. Helps with synonyms and related words.
   With subject headings you do not need to know all the possible words that could potentially be used in a research article. You just need to know what the subject heading is. This can help to make up for unfamiliarity with a topic or area of study. One of the challenges of searching using keywords, is that some terms can have many related words. For example, social media, is also related to social networks as well as online networks. In addition, articles featuring  different types of social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, etc. will also be relevant, but may not use the phrase "social media". We could use the Boolean term OR to connect all the terms, but there is always a chance that we have not thought of all the possible terms.
   
   
2. Helps achieve a mor focused search.
   Subject Headings are arranged from broader terms to more more specific terms.

​Example

Broadest term:
 communication to represent all types of communication.

Narrower term: 
Social media is a narrower term related to communication within online communities. This is narrower than communication, but still encompasses many types of online networks and communication.

Narrowest term:
Finally you can have narrower subjects headings such as blogs, which concerns itself with one type of social media.

This is an advantage because depending on your topic and what items are available, you may need to make your search narrower or broader. The Subject Headings structure provides some guidance on the terms to use to broaden or narrow your search. It can also provide related terms.

Challenges

1. Subject Terms may be different from commonly used terms for a topic.

Examples: 

GMO or genetically modified seeds (term we may want to use)
Transgenic seeds (subject term in use)

Gender role (term we may want to use)
Sex role  (actual subject term in use) 

2. When a database does not provide a thesaurus or list of subject terms, the controlled vocabulary may not be obvious.
    
3. Human error: subjects must be applied consistently for the catalogue or database to remain useful.
   There is always a tension between currency and consistency.
    

Where to find Subject Headings in Article Databases.

1. Subject headings are a field included with every database record. The will appear under the title on the search results page and are also listed on the item details page.
    
2. If you know the subject heading, you can search for the term with the Subject Terms field in the search box.
    
3. Many databases also include a subject headings look up tool. It is usually located at the top of the page. This is sometimes called Subject Terms or Thesaurus or Subjects. 
    
4. Subject headings also appear in the search result filters (located either on the right or left column of the page depending on the database). Please note that filters always narrow your results. These will result in fewer more focused results.

• Some databases are very broad and multidisciplinary e.g. EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier covers subjects from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. It contains journal articles, book chapters, newspapers,  and popular magazines.
   
• Some databases are very specific to one subject area and explores it deeply with special search features suited to the subject e.g. EBSCO’s Business Source Premier specializes in business publications, including company and industry profiles.
   
• Other databases are very specific to one type of format. For example, Canadian Newsstand Atlantic as the name implies is very specific for newspapers. It does not contain any scholarly journal articles.
   
• Databases are produced by different companies, e.g. Proquest, EBSCO, Jstor. Each company’s databases has a different look and feel, but they function in much the same way.
   
• There is no one database where everything can be found. We always have to make decision about which databases to search for the information we need.

• Specialized subject databases often have additional search options and filters that meet the needs of their disciplines and which are not available in the multidisciplinary databases
   
• Look for these on the Advanced search screen of the database, or in the filters on the results page
   

Business Source Premier allows searches to be limited to business publications such as Industry Profiles, Company Reports and SWOT Analyses

MLA offers genre as one of the fields to be searched

PsycInfo, the specialized database for Psychology, allows searches to limited to the type of methodology used in studies and the demographics of the populations studied

PubMed a bio-medical database allows results to be limited to only systematic reviews of previously done research, or alternatively to be limited to only original research.

Explore the database for your subject area.

Options for keeping notes of your research

The 3 most important items to keep track of when you find a good source are:

1. Bibliographic details (i.e. the information you need to cite or to return to the article again - author, year, title, publication, location
    
2. Brief notes on how the article fits in with your research topic. 
   It is shocking how easy it is to forget brilliant insights, a few hours after you read the article.
    
3. Quotations or relevant paraphrased passages.
   ​Ensure that quotes and paraphrased passages are connected to the article's notes and bibliographic details. It would be tragic not to be able to use a relevant quote because you cannot remember where you got it.

We all have a system of keeping track of our sources. Please share your system when we meet in Blackboard Collaborate

• Citation Managers

Most databases allow you to select items to add to a marked list or folder, not unlike a shopping card on an online shopping site.

From this folder, you can email yourself or export to the citation manager of our choice, the items you want to keep.

 Once in the citation manager, you can organize your citations by folders. Citation managers also allow you to add file attachments and notes.

In addition to helping organize and keep track of your research, citation managers can be used to create your in-text citations and reference lists if you write your paper with Microsoft Word.

• Email

Most of the major databases allow item records (and full text if available) to be sent to an email address of your choice. You may add additional notes to this message as described above. If the database does not have an internal email option, you can do this manually with your own email account. However, be sure to use the article's permalink or stable URL when recording the link the article. The URL you copy from the Browser internet address bar might be a temporary address. The permalink or stable URL will last. If you are not sure where to find the permalink, instructions can be found on the Mount's Databases A-Z link under each database.

• EBSCO or ProQuest Accounts

Major database companies like EBSCO and ProQuest allow you to create user accounts on their databases. These accounts allow you to keep track of the articles within that company's databases (but alas not the items you find from other sources). Caution: You must also remember to sign in with your EBSCO or ProQuest login every time you conduct research on their database or you might lose your work.