LIBRARY SKILLS MIDTERM 1. Review the first five units. Read the review material for the midterm. 2. Complete the Midterm by logging into Blackboard from the Library Skills webpage. Instructions are available at the Reference Desk or on the Library Skills Homepage in the Library Skills Text Links for the Midterm. Ask at the Reference Desk if you need help with Blackboard. 3. Check back to see if you need to make any corrections. 4. You must complete all corrections for Units 1 through 5 and all midterm questions must be answered correctly to receive credit for the Midterm. LIBRARY ORIENTATIONS REVIEWING QUICK CLICKS DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK A LIBRARIAN FOR HELP. LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 1
REVIEW AND MIDTERM The last five units have covered the basics of using the library, the library webpages, library catalog, some of the electronic print resources, reference materials, including encyclopedias, dictionaries almanacs, atlases and handbooks. A short review follows: Library Services The Check-Out Desk (Circulation) is where the business of the library is conducted. You can check out books there, request materials that are checked out or located at Chabot, pay fines for overdue materials, pick up materials from Reserves that have been placed on reserve by your instructors and get access to videorecordings, DVDs, CDs, and audiocassettes. The Reference Desk is where you can get help on using the library for research projects and assignments. The librarians will help you use the research databases to find the best information for your projects. They can help you find good search terms for topics, as well as how you how to use the catalog to find library materials, such as reference and check-out books, useful audiovisual materials, and the titles of the journals and magazines that the library owns. They will help you to find the most useful, accurate and authoritative Internet sites for your research. The Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system (LC) to organize the collection by subject. In order to find these materials, the LC call numbers are placed on the spines of the books and other materials as addresses, so that once you look something up and get the call numbers; you can find the book on the shelf among other GE 140 E533 2005 materials on the same subject. A call number consists of: LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 2
Line 1: Line 2: First letter equals one of the 21 major subject divisions. The second letter equals a subdivision of that major subject The whole number represents the discipline within the major subject and the number after the decimal equals a special topic Lines 3-4: Represents a further breakdown of the subject matter or a code for the author or title of the book. Any number in Line 3 or 4 is not a whole number but a decimal. Line 5: Represents the year published The Chabot/Las Positas College Library Catalog Through the combined Las Positas and Chabot catalog, you can find what materials the Library owns, where the materials are located, and whether they are available or checked out. You may restrict your searches to specific kinds of materials (books, DVDs, videos, CDs, periodicals: magazines, journals, and newspapers) and to Las Positas, Chabot, or both libraries at once. When you use the catalog, you can find what periodicals the library owns and shelves in the library, but you cannot search for articles in the periodicals. Use the Keep and Kept feature to keep track of the materials you find in the catalog and print out the Kept file to help you find the materials and to help you cite them in your Works Cited lists. The Library online catalog is simply another database that you can search to find materials located in the Library - very similar in concept to the following subscription research databases. Online & Special or Subject Encyclopedias and Dictionaries Encyclopedias are located in the reference section of the library and are invaluable to you for your research. Many general and subject encyclopedias exist to help you find basic overviews of topics and in-depth materials, and contain articles written by subject experts. Subject encyclopedias offer in-depth coverage of topics and often will be the only place you will find certain information in a small library such as Las Positas College Library. The use of the index and table of contents in encyclopedias is essential to get the most information from them. LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 3
Encyclopedia Americana Online offers an electronic version of a popular general print encyclopedia which is enhanced by media, journal articles, world newspaper articles, an atlas, English and Spanish dictionaries, as well as a thesaurus and many additional features. The Library Reference section also contains general and subject dictionaries. The most obvious type of dictionary that we all use is an English language dictionary, the largest and most complete is the Oxford English Dictionary. Most students are familiar with the English language thesaurus. It is useful for finding synonyms and antonyms of words to help you use a more varied vocabulary in your research papers. Special and subject dictionaries are also very helpful. The library has many foreign language dictionaries to help you translate from another language to English. Subject dictionaries deal with vocabularies specific to certain subjects. If you are studying geology and need to find the definitions of geological terms, the Dictionary of Geological Terms in Reference may cover all of the special geologic definitions you need. The use of dictionaries and encyclopedias can make your research and projects much easier. If you can't think of concepts and ideas or definitions of terms, you can always refer to a general or subject encyclopedia or dictionary. Your instructor may not allow you to cite resources for general encyclopedias and dictionaries, but most accept the articles in subject and special encyclopedias and dictionaries because they are written by experts, specialists and scholars in the subject. Electronic Print Resources: Journals, Magazines & Newspapers The electronic print resources to which the Library subscribes, includes EBSCOhost: Academic Search Premier, NewsBank, GenderWatch, and Ethnic NewsWatch. They are not part of the general Web resources that you could find using Google or Yahoo. If your instructors restrict the number of websites that you may use for your research projects, they are not restricting your use of the electronic print resources. The information in all of the subscription LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 4
research databases started out as print resources (magazine, newspaper, journal, book, report) that have been through an editorial process before being published. Most of these materials should be current, accurate, objective, and written by authors knowledgeable in the subjects covered. The difference with general websites is that though many are strictly researched and documented, there is no editorial oversight. Anyone can place materials on the Web. It is up to you to determine: Whether the material is accurate and current Whether the author is an expert in the field Whether the author is objective or biased Whether the information presented is up-to-date Whether the topic is fully covered You must work much harder to determine if the information you find on the general Web will be suitable for your research and accepted by your instructors. You may use these electronic print resources on and off campus. You will have to learn how to use each of the individual search interfaces for the databases. Learn to use the HELP SCREENS in each of the databases to help you use the different search interfaces. Every databases offers instruction in how best to find information in the database. Read the short descriptions of the databases on Quick Clicks to get an idea of what each database offers. This will help you to choose the best database for your research needs. Finally, once you learn to use any electronic print resources, you will find that all electronic resources have much in common even if the search interfaces and the subjects covered are different. Remember that they all have help screens; print, email, and save options; methods for guided search options (advanced, power search, etc.); and Boolean AND, OR, NOT searches and phrase searching. LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 5
Almanacs, Atlases, & Other Electronic Print Reference Resources Reference books provide quick answers, introductory explanations, statistics, addresses, etc., and should be a resource that you remember to use for the beginning of any research project. There are many kinds of reference books other than encyclopedias, some are discussed below. An almanac is extremely useful for looking up a wide variety of general information. Academic Search Elite contains the full-text of every article in The World Almanac and Book of Facts. You find magazine, journal and newspaper articles and the World Almanac in EBSCOhost, and also a great collection of pictures and maps. You may search the Image Collection for photos of people, natural science photos, photos of places, historical photos, maps, and flags. Atlases and gazetteers are designed specifically for the study of geography or other topics linked to geography, sociology, history, and other subjects. An atlas is a bound collection of maps, covering geographic, geopolitical, thematic, historical, road, or other subject in map form. A gazetteer is a dictionary of geographical names and a directory of places in the world with detailed statistical information on location, population, topography, history, economic activity, key dates in the calendar, maps and a guide to pronunciation of place names. CountryWatch is an online handbook of information about countries. It contains up-todate information, maps, and news on the countries of the world. The Encyclopedia Americana Atlas (Grolier Online Passport) is a useful resource that contains more than 1,400 maps, hundreds of photos, and thousands of links to related articles. If you click on the Atlas link you will find geopolitical, thematic, and exploration maps. If you wish to find maps of famous world explorers, you could click on the Exploration link, to trace their paths. LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 6
Handbooks offer hard to find information in one-volume sources. The government creates many of these reference works and often put them online. Some of the handbooks discussed are: Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, The Merck Index, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Statistical Abstract of the United States, and California Statistical Abstract. Other topical current resources (print and online) include CQ Researcher (a periodical on current events in the news), and Opposing Viewpoints, At Issue, and Current Controversies which cover pro and con issues that are useful for current event papers and speeches. Other useful web reference resources can be found through Librarians Index to the Internet (lii.org) by clicking on Ready Reference & Quick Facts. Conclusion This short overview of the first five units of Library Skills will help you focus on the information you need to complete the short midterm and continue with the Library Skills course. It will also serve as a reminder for methods to help you: 1. Find overviews of topics 2. Identify appropriate strategies for choosing search terms 3. Combine search terms effectively 4. Search using keywords and subject headings 5. Find appropriate materials in the library catalog 6. Identify types of information available in library electronic print resources (databases) 7. Select appropriate library electronic resource for use 8. Learn the commonalities and similarities and differences of the print and electronic print resources available to you. LPC Library Skills I: Midterm Review 2005/2006 <http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/library_skills.php> 7