Library Guides: English 1

David Hurst, Instructor
Kathie Lewis, Librarian

Reference Collection:   Located on the first floor of the library behind the Reference Desk.  These books must remain in the library. Reference books include dictionaries, almanacs and encyclopedias. Specialized or subject encyclopedias (concentrating on a particular subject instead of covering all knowledge) are excellent starting points for research. They are focused on a particular topic, cover the major concepts of the topic, are written by experts in the field, and often have bibliographies or other references. Examples of Reference books that cover the topic of gender issues are:

Encyclopedia of Psychology    R 150.3 En56     This encyclopedia set contains articles on Gender, Sex and Culture, Gender Differences, Gender Identity, and Gender Socialization

Encyclopedia of Family Life    R 306.85 En56

Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family    R 306.8 En56

The Latino Encyclopedia   R 973.0468 L357   Try using the index and look under the topics women and gender

Reference Library of Hispanic America    R 973.0468 R332

The Asian American Encyclopedia    R 973.0495 A832

COS Online Catalog:   The online catalog will provides information on locating circulating books in the library. The books are generally located on the second floor of the library.  Try the following subject headings:

Electronic Databases:  A database is an organized collection of information that can be searched in an orderly fashion. Examples of print databases include phonebooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Electronic databases can include library catalogs, magazines and newspapers. Many of the electronic databases include the full-text of the articles.  Click here for hints on using electronic databases efficiently.

• Infotrac: This database indexes over 1000 magazines/journal and provides the full-text to many of the articles it indexes. Infotrac can be searched by keyword and by subject headings.
  Below are some sample Subject Headings:

• Academic Abstracts:  This database has few magazines/journals than Infotrac but it also has articles that cannot be found in Infotrac.
                                       It is best to use keyword searching with this database.

• SIRS:  This database is arranged by topics and all the articles are full-text.
               The articles come from magazines, newspapers and government documents.
               It can be searched by keyword and subject headings.

Keyword Searching:
     Every electronic database is made up of words and although the computer does not think the way we do, it is terrific at recognizing words. When you type words into the search box the computer will look in the database for those words and bring back all the records/entries that contain the words you requested. In keyword searching you want the most important words that describe your topic.

Example 1:     Has space exploration brought many benefits to the public?
                      The key words would be "space exploration" and benefits

Example 2:     Should animals be used in medical experiments?
                      The key words would be animals and medical and experiments

Boolean Operators:
     Keyword searching uses Boolean Operators to link the search terms together. The Boolean operator you will use most often is AND.  The Boolean Operator AND means that the terms connected by it must be in the search results. In Example 1 I decided that my keywords were space exploration and benefits so my search query would be  "space exploration" and benefits   This would ensure that those terms would have to be in the record somewhere or the computer would not return it to me.

Searching for a phrase:  Sometimes keywords include a phrase instead of single words. Some examples include: gun control, human cloning, endangered species, National Rife Association....  Put quote marks around phrases so the computer will search for it as a phrase and not as individual words.  Example: "baseball fans"

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This page was created October 24, 2005. This page was last updated: 10/29/2009
For questions and comments, please mail to: kathiel@cos.edu