Catherine Gracey
Open Scholarship and Applied Sciences Librarian at the University of New Brunswick
the basics of library resources
Cat Gracey; CS/Entrepreneurship Librarian
Every place you search has either
- A different collection of items that it contains
OR
- A different mechanism for ranking them
While easy to overlook, this is essential...
Therefore, where you search directly affects the results you get, and the quality of information
This is a critical consideration
Certain information is paywalled, meaning you can't access it legally without paid access. At UNB we pay for our students, faculty and staff to be able to access many resources
You can access these through the library catalogue or databases, most of which are disciplinarily focused
Podcasts or blogs by industry leaders
Data on the demographic breakdown of households within a particular Canadian province
Up to date academic research
Google Search
Stats Can
Library Database
Podcasts or blogs by industry leaders
Data on the demographic breakdown of households within a particular Canadian province
Up to date academic research
Google Search
Stats Can
Library Database
To help you figure out where to search... TME 3513 Research Guide
Natural Language Search
- Queries structured as normal human language, then interpreted by AI
- "What time does the library close?"
- Think Google Search
Keyword Search
- Literal searching of specific keywords in documents
- "library hours fredericton"
- Think CTRL F in a document
- You're going to use this type of search primarily in Academic Databases
Here, you are literally searching for the words "artificial intelligence" together, and Zotero is showing you the 4 spots the word appears in the text. It does not understand that AI is the same thing, and so won't pull up examples of "AI" in the text.
If you want to search for multiple concepts at once, you need to use boolean operators to combine keywords. This tells the database how to interpret your query.
Other fun syntax!
| Name | Symbol | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quotation | "" | Searches for that phrase exactly | "graph theory" |
| Truncation | * | Searches for variations on this word | educat* |
| Proximity | N/3 or Near/3 or W/3 | Searches for kw within 3 (or n) words of each other | climate NEAR/2 change |
There are lots of ways to sort/narrow down your results and find similar/related articles. This example is Scopus, but true of all academic databases
Thanks!
Contact me via email (catherine.gracey@unb.ca) or my booking link to discuss further!
Basics of Searching TME 3513
By Catherine Gracey
Basics of Searching TME 3513
Introductory into choosing a place to search and utilizing the appropriate syntax for TME 3513
