[nabs-l] research techniques and assistance

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi all,

Its been my experience that research is very challenging. Have you run into these issues?

Not all databases are fully accessible, although that has been better in the past couple years.
For instance, academic search complete and other Search complete databases do not let you change the combo box from the default and to read “or”. This means it would look for search terms A and B or search term C.

Other challenges I’ve had are evaluating if the article is relevant. I do read abstracts first and think through it. It seems like I read most of an article only to realize its not relevant.
Also, some articlesare pdfs with words smashed together; I end up asking a reader to read them.

What assistance have you had with research? All school libraries have reference librarians at a certain desk. Do you just ask them where to look? Have you needed or wanted more help learning the databases and electronic references? Has the librarians worked  1 on 1 with you? At the community college and my university, Marymount, they did assist me a little privately to get me started. They gave me specific instructions on what to click on and which boxes to check to get what I needed. I needed to limit to full text, for instance; also if I needed recent articles, I was taught how to write in the date range. 

These references seem inaccessible. Was that your experience?

  a.. Encyclopedia Britanica 
  b.. Credo reference 
  c.. Gale biography in context


Also, books are not accessible and libraries have lots of them.
How do you direct readers to find what you need? I’ve tried asking for headings and table of contents. This does not always work. Is skimming relevant chapters the best thing?

Thanks.
Ashley