WRIT 100-11: LIBRARY RESEARCH
Mackenzie Brooks
Assistant Professor & Digital Humanities Librarian
English Department Liaison
brooksm@wlu.edu // Leyburn M37
October 13, 2015
Get out your library/research anxiety now.
http://goo.gl/IeGT3S
By the end of this session, you will...
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Understand how a library works.
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No longer fear information overload.
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Be able to "search everything."
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Have sources for your research paper.
By the end of this session, you will...
How the Library Works
How the Library Works
Collections + People
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8601342@N03/4549779936/
Libraries Before the Internet
Libraries After the Internet
Information overload
Information overload
Filter failure
https://xkcd.com/1227/
Information overload is not new.
Filters change over time.
Filters come in many forms.
Search Everything is:
- a discovery tool/system/service
- something we pay for
- potentially biased
- one of the best of its kind
- still not perfect
- constantly changing
Everything =
- 384,267 e-books
- 94,735 e-journals
- 513,255,675 records
- 975,050 catalog items (mostly print)
- 1.5 billion citations
- 90 content types
Remember
You have to tell Search Everything that you know what you're looking for.
A word on Google Scholar...
Activity #1
Turn your research question into a search strategy by deleting everything but the nouns.
Now add some synonyms.
Activity #2
Use Search Everything to find a print book that is available in the library.
Go forth into the stacks and find that book! While you're there, take a look at the other books on the shelf.
Don't forget that the research process is a process.
Using your book's bibliography, find another relevant title from stacks.