COMS 600 Library Lecture

Since there was a log of information presented, I thought I would share my lecture notes:

COMS 600 Library Instruction Session
Fall 2008

Goal: Introduce resources and search strategies for locating quality information sources for graduate-level COMS research.

Introduce the Library home page http://library.csun.edu/

Introduce Communication Studies Research page http://library.csun.edu/kdabbour/comsresearch.html

1. Background resources:
   Encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, statistics links can be used for background information needed for the interdisciplinary nature of COMS—can’t be an expert in everything. These will explain terms, theories, provide statistics, facts, etc.
2. Periodicals:
   Definition of peer-reviewed journals.
3. Popular press used for news, secondary source explanations, depends on research needs.
4. Periodical Databases:
   Communication & Mass Media Complete—Indexes and abstracts over 400 journals. Subjects covered include communication studies, journalism, mass media, speech, linguistics, communicative disorders, deaf studies, advertising, and related areas of interest to practitioners and educators in these fields. Dates of coverage vary by journal.

• Demonstrate brainstorming topics, Boolean AND, OR & truncation.
• Sample topic: Rhetorical criticism of elections
  Rhetoric of elections [1 record] (explain exact phrase searching)
  Rhetoric AND elections (explain AND needed in library databases)
  Point out “narrow results by subject” and use to narrow search results, click on Presidential elections, etc.
  Subject thesaurus terms: can click to add or use to manually add synonyms to search boxes with OR
  Rhetoric AND (elections OR campaigns) (explain OR to add synonyms)
  Rhetoric* AND (election* OR campaign*) (explain truncation)
  Rhetoric* AND (election* OR campaign*) AND president* (adding AND to focus)
• Look at full records to explain additional subject headings and use of controlled vocabulary.
• Can limit to peer-reviewed or click Academic Journals in the left nav bar.
• Locating articles:
  Linked full text
  Find Text -- online via other library databases, hardcopy record listed in catalog, interlibrary loan if not available
  Inter-Library Loan
• Search history allows you to revisit previous searches, display results, and revise the search: what we learned together: the little triangle next to the link to search history toggles it on/off (click the triangle to return to your live search)
• Show other databases in Ebsco database menu, including Academic Search Elite, Library & Info Sci & Technology Abstracts, etc. that can be searched simultaneously with CMMC.

5. Other periodical databases:
· Multisearch Communication Studies: Search up to 10 databases from any vendor simultaneously.
· Sage Journals: 20+ communication studies journals,
· Review other databases and coverage on the comsresearch.html list and why one would use them.
· For example: Ethnic Newswatch: rhetoric* AND (election* OR campaign*) AND president* limited to Hispanic press
6. Books, media, government documents:
· Library catalog
· Sample library of congress subject headings from comsresearch.html
· Keyword searching vs. subject headings (LCSH)
· Sample search for this topic: rhetoric* AND (election* OR campaign*) AND president* [choose Communication in the presidential primaries : candidates and the media, 1912-2000 to show LCSH=Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States]
· Interlibrary loan
7. Determine which journals the Library has by title using the library catalog
8. Worldcat.org: see what else is out there.
9. COMS theses and dissertations:
10. Internet:
· Review other search engines besides Google, advanced Google searching

Google scholar preferences--set to search CSUN library to see if we have it
· Evaluating web sites based on authority, etc.
11. Review citation style cheat sheets
12. Point out plagiarism avoidance web pages