RESEARCH
EDUCATION
IN
PROFESSOR SARAH COHN
HEAD OF REFERENCE, EDUCATION LIBRARIAN
Spring 2026
AGENDA
Getting Help
Framing Concepts
Library Databases
Searching
Technical Logistics
Managing Your Research
TODAY'S
Getting Help
Professor Sarah Cohn
Head of Reference, Education Librarian
scohn@ccny.cuny.edu
Reference Desk: Cohen Library
Monday-Thursday 10am-7pm
Friday 10am-4pm
CONCEPTS
FRAMING
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Research as inquiry
- Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry.
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Searching as (strategic) exploration
- Searching for information is often nonlinear, requiring the evaluation of sources and the flexibility to pursue alternate avenues as needed.
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Process, 'friction', failure
- How we learn!
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Cognitive offloading & generative AI
- What do you give up when you outsource thinking, process, learning to a machine?
LLMs & Generative AI
On the matter of unicorns
DATABASES
LIBRARY
Education Source
ERIC
Educators Reference Complete
OneSearch
Taylor & Francis Academic OneFile
JSTOR
Subject Specific
Multi-Disciplinary
PsychTests
Instruments, surveys, measures
library.ccny.cuny.edu
- Access to all 200+ databases at CCNY
- Alphabetical or filter by subject
- Simple search bar option
- Meta-search
- Searches multiple databases at once
- Catalog of print & ebooks
but not all of them!
TERMS
SEARCH
what is your main topic?
what are the specifics?
The more ways you have to describe your ideas, the wider net you can cast in your searching.
what are different ways to describe your ideas?
How do 1:1 reading conferences in which students’ individualized reading goals are prioritized improve reading abilities among my fourth grade students?
reading conferences
reading skills
reading goals
reading strategies
data on reading skills improvement
STRATEGIES
SEARCH
use AND to connect terms
combining different terms = different results
students AND elementary AND active learning AND math
special education AND elementary AND active learning AND math
use OR to connect synonyms
elementary OR primary AND students AND active learning AND math
use "..." for phrases or names
"active learning", "bell hooks"
use database filters to narrow your search
use the database thesaurus for targeted searches
you may need to broaden your search
LOGISTICS
TECHNICAL
Think about how you want to save, organize, and annotate your research
Consider a citation manager
(more on these later!)
Install LibKey Nomad on your computer
Download the browser extension at thirdiron.com/downloadnomad
Set your institution to City College, CUNY
LibKey checks for full-text access to scholarly articles through CCNY Libraries
Create an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) account
This enables you to request articles the library does not have full-text access to in our databases
library.ccny.cuny.edu
Services
Interlibrary Loan
Use your CCNY email & EMPLID
Available in another database, either directly or through a provided link.
Not available in another database--request via ILL.
Getting Help
Professor Sarah Cohn
Head of Reference, Education Librarian
scohn@ccny.cuny.edu
Reference Desk: Cohen Library
Monday-Thursday 10am-7pm
Friday 10am-2pm
MANAGERS
CITATION
Save articles, books, websites & more in one place.
Create in-text citations and works cited page in the format of your choice.
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Zotero
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Free & open source
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zotero.org
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RefWorks
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Subscription through CCNY
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Find on the Library Database A-Z list under R
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Create a new account using your CCNY email address
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SEARCHING
CITATION
JOURNAL TITLE SEARCH
DOI SEARCH
Claire Wladis, Alyse C. Hachey & Katherine Conway (2018) No Time for College? An Investigation of Time Poverty and Parenthood, The Journal of Higher Education, 89:6, 807-831. DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2018.1442983
JOURNAL TITLE SEARCH
library.ccny.cuny.edu
Journals by Title
Claire Wladis, Alyse C. Hachey & Katherine Conway (2018) No Time for College? An Investigation of Time Poverty and Parenthood, The Journal of Higher Education, 89:6, 807-831.
LIBKEY.IO
A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) or PMID (or PubMed IDentifier) search page for City College holdings at
libkey.io/libraries/1271/
Claire Wladis, Alyse C. Hachey & Katherine Conway (2018) No Time for College? An Investigation of Time Poverty and Parenthood, The Journal of Higher Education, 89:6, 807-831, DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2018.1442983
SOURCE
EDUCATION
Filters: Peer Reviewed
OPTIONAL!!!
