INTRODUCTION

The Dawson College Library is home to contemporary and historical resources that cover the full range of disciplines taught in the college. These resources are provided in various physical and electronic formats.

All of our library resources can be accessed from http://dolls.dawsoncollege.qc.ca, or select “Library” from the “Quick Links” menu on the Dawson College Homepage: http://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca.

Read About the Library for information on other library tools and facilities, such as laptops and photocopiers.



SELECTING YOUR SOURCES

For any given assignment, you may have to find a range of different sources. Different types of sources – e.g., encyclopedias, books, scholarly articles, or newspapers – provide different types of information.

Encyclopedias contain general overviews of topics, and help quickly identify central issues, important figures, and key dates or events. Search for these in the Library Catalogue or click on REFERENCE in the list of databases.

Books contain in-depth perspectives, and are likely to provide a thorough, detailed and historical overview of a subject. Search for these in the Library Catalogue.

Scholarly Articles (i.e., peer-reviewed) are published in academic journals, and contain high-level discussions or research on specific topics of study. Search for these in the Article Databases.

Recognizing a Scholarly Article
Author	A scholarly article will usually identify the author’s credentials (e.g., MD, PhD) or institutional affiliation (e.g., Department of Education, McGill University).
Content	Scholarly articles may summarize expert opinions on a subject, discuss the findings of past research studies, or report the findings of new research. They are typically several pages long, and contain descriptive headings of the article’s content. Research studies will usually have a section called “Methodology” that describes how the study was designed and carried out.
Language / Tone	Scholarly articles are written by academics, scientists, and researchers to inform other specialists, or students, about developments in their field. They often use terms and phrases that are familiar to their peers, but aren’t common in everyday language.
References	A scholarly article should always contain footnotes or a list of references at the end. These notes and references allow readers to verify information provided in the article, or follow-up on ideas or opinions expressed by the author(s).

Popular Magazine and Newspaper Articles are written by reporters or columnists, for the general population, and contain information designed to inform and entertain the public. Search for these in the Article Databases (ProQuest, EBSCOhost, JSTOR, etc.).

Web sites can provide a wealth of information, but you have to be critical, and investigate their credibility (authority), accuracy, and currency.

Evaluating a Web Site
Authority	What are the author’s credentials? Is the domain a “.com” or one of the following: .edu, .gov, .org, or .net?
Accuracy	Does the page list the author and institution that published the page? Is there contact information?
Audience	Who is the page aimed at? (laypersons, fans, professionals, specialists, educators, etc.)
Objectivity & Quality	Does the page provide accurate information with a minimum of advertising? Look for biases, affiliations, opinions and perspectives.
Currency & Stability	Is the page current and updated regularly? Are the links working?

CITING YOUR SOURCES

The URLs listed below provide links to websites with instructions for students on how to do bibliographies and footnotes. When using the library databases do not rely on their details for MLA or APA formatting. Do check the official style guides for accuracy.

Citing sources	This guide to library research provides a quick and comparative look at works-cited formats for APA, Chicago Style, MLA and Turabian.
Citing Statistics Canada	This guide describes, in three steps, how to build your reference when citing Statistics Canada products.
Dawson College Style Sheet	This site provides formatting for both APA and MLA bibliographic styles as well as instructions for writing an annotated bibliography, an essay and a research paper.
The Owl at Purdue	The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material. You will find information to assist with many writing projects e.g. how to do a bibliography in MLA or APA formats, etc.
Research and Documentation	The real standout on this site is the extensive explanation of 4 of the major documentation styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, CBE).
Sources	The large "Examples" section demonstrates the format for bibliographies and footnotes - following the APA, MLA, and Science citation styles - as well as MLA's note style.

SEARCHING THE COLLECTION

Whether you’re looking for a book in the Library Catalogue, or searching for an article in one of the Article Databases, there are two ways to search for materials: by Keyword or Subject.

A keyword search will retrieve every record that contains the terms you type in the database search
field(s). This is the default search mode of all databases.

A subject search uses a controlled list of subject terms to find all items on a particular subject.

KEYWORD SEARCHING

To perform a keyword search, type one or more search terms in the search field(s) provided. Press ‘Enter’ to get your results. Each record in your results list will correspond with a single book or article, and will contain all of the terms you typed.

A keyword search can be very effective. However, its effectiveness depends on the relevance of your search terms, how you enter them, and how you choose to combine them.

Before you search, you may want to think about your research topic, and what keywords you could use to find information your topic.

Choosing Keywords

Most research topics combine two or more main ideas. For each idea, there may be many keywords you can think of to describe it (i.e., synonyms). Before you search, try to clarify the main ideas of your topic, and think of all the keywords you can use to describe them.

You might try plotting your terms in a table like this:

Topic:    The media’s contribution to eating disorders in teenagers.
Main Ideas	Media	Eating Disorders	Teenagers
Keywords	Media Mass media Magazines Television Internet	Anorexia Bulimia Eating disorders Body image Self-image	Teens Teenagers Adolescents Youth

When you’ve identified your main ideas, and thought of some keywords, you should think about how to enter and combine them in the search fields. A thorough keyword search will use Truncation, Boolean Logic, and, in some cases, useful Limits to control how the database searches. These tools are explained in the following sections.

Tip: When searching, always type single keywords, not whole sentences. Type:   “anorexia AND teenagers”     Not: “The causes of anorexia in teenagers.”

Truncation

To “truncate” means to shorten. A truncation symbol (usually the asterisk, *) lets you search for multiple variations of a word, and thereby increase the likelihood of finding all relevant and available records on your topic.

Truncation is useful because a keyword search can only retrieve records that contain the exact form of the word you enter.

If you type in the keyword “dream” (letters “d-r-e-a-m”) every record that contains the singular noun/verb “dream” will be returned. However, the search will not recognize records that contain “dreams”, “dreaming”, “dreamer”, or “dreamers”. The truncation symbol allows you to search for all these variants at one time.

If you type “dream*” in the search field, the database will find all the records that contain: “dream”, “dreams”, “dreamer”, “dreamers”, “dreaming”.

For any keyword you use in a search, think how/where you might truncate it to find the most variants.

The Truncation symbol can vary from one database to another.

TRUNCATION	Symbol	Example
Library Catalogue	$ Dollar Sign	Teen$    will retrieve Teens Teenage Teenager Teenagers
Article Databases	* Asterisk	Adolescen*   will retrieve Adolescent Adolescents Adolescence

Boolean Logic

Boolean Logic is a form of algebra, and it controls the search function of most library catalogues and databases. When you enter search terms, you have to tell the database how to combine them. If you don’t tell it, the database will apply its own logic, and this may not return what you want.

Boolean Operators

The Boolean Operators “AND”, “OR” and “NOT” are the basic building blocks of any search, and allow you to control how the database combines your terms. If you type more than one keyword and use no Boolean operators, most databases will assume there is an “AND” between them. The following table and diagrams explain how each operator works. The shaded portion of each diagram identifies what records will be returned.

AND	OR	NOT
a AND b	a OR b	a NOT b
Finds all records that contain both keywords, in any field.	Finds all records that contain either keyword, in any field.	Finds records that contain the 1st term, and excludes records containing the 2nd.
Use AND between terms that represent different ideas.	Use OR between terms that represent the same idea (i.e., synonyms).	Use NOT to exclude a term.
cats AND allergies	domestic OR household	pets NOT cats

Combining (Nesting) Keywords

The above diagram explains that an “OR” should be used between synonymous keywords, and will retrieve all the records that contain either term. When there are several synonyms for one idea, “nesting’” uses parentheses “( )” to group these terms together.

This group of nested terms can then be combined in a search with other single or nested terms.

Nesting Using terms from the table above, a good Boolean search statement could nest (and truncate) terms like this: Main Idea 1 Main Idea 2 (anorexi* OR bulimi*) AND (teen* or adolesc*) The records in the results list must include at least one term from each group of nested terms.

The following table shows examples of correct and incorrect use of nesting in a search statement. In the correct statement, keyword “a” (pets) is combined with the nested, synonymous keywords “b” (domestic) and “c” (household).

The search statement you construct is an algebraic equation - a AND ( b OR c ) - which is then factored out by the database: ( a AND b ) OR ( a AND c ).

In the incorrect statement, there is no nesting, and the database falls back on its own programmed logic. First it combines “a” and “b” (“pets and domestic”), then returns every record containing keyword “c” (household). The following diagram shows the results of both searches.

Correct Nesting	X    Incorrect (no nesting)
a AND (b OR c) database factors statement as (a AND b) OR (a AND c)	a AND b OR c no nesting, database factors using its own logic ( a AND b ) OR c
algebra:      a ( b + c ) = ab + ac	ab + c
pets AND ( domestic OR household ) = (pets AND domestic) OR ( pets AND household )	pets AND domestic OR household = (pets AND domestic) OR household
( a OR b ) AND ( c OR d ) = (a AND c) OR (a AND d) OR (b AND c) OR (b AND d)
(anorexi* OR bulimi*) AND (teen* or adolesc*) = (anorexi* AND teen*) OR (anorxi* AND adolesc*) OR (bulimi* AND teen*) OR (bulimi* AND adolesc*)

SUBJECT SEARCHING

Subject searching is an alternative to keyword searching (though a thorough search will use both techniques).

Each record in a database will contain a short list of subject terms that describe the contents of the book or article. These subjects (also called “headings”, “descriptors”, or “topics”) are assigned, by a librarian, from a controlled list of terms.

There are three ways to search for items by subject:

1)      Click on a subject link, from inside a book/article record. This will conduct a subject search, and return every other record that contains the term you selected;

2)      Type a known subject term into the keyword search field, and click the “Subject” button (Library catalogue) or choose “Subject” from the field drop-down menu (article databases); or.

3)      Browse through an alphabetical list of subjects, and click on a term to find all the records. This list of subjects may appear under one of the following menu tabs: Subjects; Topics; Thesaurus; Descriptors; Indexes.

A subject search may find fewer results than a keyword search, but these results are usually more precise. This is because a keyword search mechanically matches words (or strings of letters), whereas a subject search intelligently matches ideas.

Subject terms will vary from one database to another, so it’s important that you use terms that are recognized by the database you are searching. In the Library Catalogue, subjects are selected from the Library of Congress Subject Headings list. The article databases (ProQuest, EBSCOhost, etc.) contain their own topic lists.



LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION

Dawson’s General and Reference collections are organized following the Library of Congress Classification Scheme. The Library of Congress is used by most college and university libraries, and is designed to ensure that books on the same subject are grouped together on the shelves. In some cases, browsing the shelf can identify books that have not been found by keyword or subject searching.

Call Numbers

Each book in the collection has a unique Call Number that is constructed from the Library of Congress Classification scheme.

Call Numbers

QH 308.2 .C353 2005 The first part of the Call Number is built from LC classes, subclasses and subject divisions associated with specific numbers: Q = Science QH =      Natural history-biology QH 301-705.5 =         Biology (General) (QH 308.2 falls in this range) The second part of the Call Number (e.g. “.C353”) is usually created from the author’s last name or the title of the book. As above, the call number sometimes ends with the year of publication.