Information Skills Online Course

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Introduction

Information skills are the skills you need to use library- and information-related tools and resources. They range from being able to use the library catalogue in order to find books to being able to find the information you want on Google.

Information skills are generic skills. In other words, once you are able to use one tool or resource, you can apply the same skills to using other tools and resources. They can be applied in an academic, theological context, but they can also be applied in other contexts – at home or at work. Information skills are an important part of your skills set for studying at Queen’s, but they are also lifelong skills. They will serve you well in your life after Queen’s.

It also perhaps worth noting what information skills – in this context – are not. They are not IT (information technology) skills. This is not a course on how to use word processing packages or spreadsheets, how to set up printers or log on to the wireless network. Nor are they study skills. You will not find here guidance on speed reading or note taking, referencing or plagiarism. These are of course necessary skills to learn, and they are related to information skills, but they are not what this course is about.

This course is essentially about searching. It is about understanding how databases and search engines work, and about how they can most effectively be used. It is about the interface between the world of information (what’s out there) and your particular information requirements. It is about identifying and articulating your information needs, devising a search strategy, performing a search, evaluating the results, and modifying your search in the light of them. Above all it is about perseverance, about not giving up when there are “No records found” and not being overwhelmed when you get too many. The aim is that by the end of the course you should be a little further along the road to becoming an expert searcher …

Course outline

Part 1 : The basics : finding books and journals in the library

• Reading the reading list
• Using the library catalogue to find books
• Finding journals in the library

Part 2 : Becoming an expert searcher

• How to select the search tool that best meets your needs
• Aids to searching
• The nature of the bibliographic record
• The concept of a “keyword”
• The concept of a “subject heading”
• The search strategy
• Searching by class number

Part 3 : Searching the databases

• Ebsco Religion & Philosophy Database
• ATLA Religion Database
• Google Scholar

 

Links to related documents

• Table
• Logins
• Exercise

 

Part 1 : The basics : finding books and journals in the library

Reading the reading list

Being able to find books and journals in the library is a prerequisite for studying at Queen’s, but even before you start searching, you need to be able to distinguish book and journal references on a reading list. Reading lists are compiled by tutors, and the style of referencing may vary, but broadly speaking you should be able to distinguish three different types of reference:

• a book
• a chapter or article in a book
• an article in a journal

Here are three examples:

• Alan Mann. Atonement for a sinless society. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005.
• Kosuke Koyama. "The crucified Christ challenges human power" in Asian faces of Jesus ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (London: SCM Press, 1993) pp.149-62.
• E.T. Charry. "While visions of salvation dance in our heads" in Theology Today 61:3 (2004) 291-6.

The first example is a book. The title of the book is in italics [does not show in web version].

The second example is an article or chapter in a book. The author (Koyama) is the author of the article. The title of the article is in inverted commas. The title of the book is in italics, and the editor of the book (Sugirtharajah) is given, along with a page reference.

The third example is an article in a journal. The author (Cherry) is the author of the article. The title of the article is in inverted commas. The title of the journal is in italics, and the volume number (61:3) is given, along with a page reference.

So how do you go about finding these references in the library? All library catalogues list books, and some library catalogues list journal titles, but very few library catalogues index articles or chapters. So to find Koyama’s article (example 2), you would need to search the catalogue for the book, Asian faces of Jesus, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah. The Queen’s library catalogue does not list journal titles, so to find Charry’s article (example 3), you would need to check the list of Current Journals on the library website, and then find the relevant issue on the shelf (see Finding journals in the library).

Using the library catalogue to find books

You will find a link to the library catalogue on the library website. Click on the Go button. You will be presented with the General Search screen. The library catalogue is publicly available, so there is no need to log in. You will only need to log in if you want to renew books or reserve books, or check your borrower record.

The General Search is usually sufficient for locating a particular book. There are many ways to search for a book, but my advice is to keep your search as simple as possible. When you enter a search term, the computer will search for all the occurrences of that search term on the database, regardless of whether it occurs in a title, an author name, or anywhere else. So choose the most distinctive search term from the information that you have. In the examples above, the following search terms are all likely to be relatively distinctive: Mann, sinless, faces. The following terms – in the context of a theological library catalogue – are unlikely to be distinctive: society, atonement, Jesus. Try them, and see how many results you get.

In practice, it usually makes sense to enter two search terms rather than one. Two search terms in combination will often produce an exact match. If you choose to combine an author name with a word from the title, you will need to include the link word “and”. Try the following:

• atonement sinless
• Mann and atonement
• Asian faces

Of course you are welcome to type in the whole title, but the point is that you don’t need to. The more you type, the more likely you are to make a mistake. Here are some examples of common mistakes:

• atonement for asinless society
• mann atonement
• sugitharajah

In the first example, there is a simple typographical error. In the second example, the link word “and” needs to be added. In the third example, there is an easy-to-make spelling mistake (be alert to the possibility of spelling mistakes with unusual words or names).

Note that in the first example, you are offered the opportunity to perform what is called a “loose search”, which eventually finds the book you are looking for. In the second example, you are given the option of searching for each search term individually. But in the third example, you simply draw a blank.

The brief catalogue record

When you perform a search, the results are presented in the form of one or more brief catalogue records. Usually the brief catalogue record is sufficient to find the book in the library, but occasionally you will need to view the full catalogue record, which contains more information. To view the full catalogue record, click on the title.

 

To find the book in the library, you need to note the Location (Main Shelves) and the Class or shelf mark (232.8 MAN). Most of the stock in the library is located on the Main Shelves, but there are several other locations which you need to be aware of:

• Pamphlets      
• Quartos (for oversize publications)
• Reference      
• Reserve Shelf
• Stack (the closed access area in the Stack Room) 
• Videos / DVDs           

The Class mark comprises a number followed by three letters (usually derived from the first three letters of the author’s surname). The number represents a subject, so by arranging the books in the library by number, we are effectively arranging them by subject, as well as providing the key to locating them. Books on the same subject, and hence with the same number, are arranged alphabetically by author (hence the three letters are sometimes referred to as a “filing suffix”).

Once you have noted the Location and the Class mark, you should consult the maps in the library. There are a map and guide in the foyer area which show where the various sequences are located, and each room has a more detailed map showing the precise arrangement.

The two most common mistakes which people make when they can’t find a book are a) to assume that the book is on the Main Shelves, when it is in fact located elsewhere, and b) to fail to spot that it is on loan.

Finding journals in the library

We now return to the third of our three examples. To find the article by Charry, we need to find the journal Theology Today. You will find a link to an alphabetical list of Current Journals on the library website. Browse down to Theology Today.

Column 2 indicates that the library holds a full print run from 1970 to the present. Column 3 indicates that content is also available online for the period 1958-1997, but this doesn’t help us with the Charry article, which was published in 2004.

The library’s journal collection is located in the Kingsmead Room, and the journals are arranged in alphabetical order. The Charry article is in Vol.61 No.3, 2004.

Part 2 : Becoming an expert searcher

So far we have looked at how to find specific books and articles in the library. But the resources available are not limited to the book and journal collections at Queen’s, and having a specific reference is not a prerequisite for finding relevant information. This section will introduce you to a range of resources and search tools which are available to Queen’s students, and will help you to make best use of them. It will also introduce you to subject searching. You may find it helpful to keep the following links open as you work through the material:

• Queen’s library catalogue
• Birmingham University library catalogue
• Ebsco Religion & Philosophy Database [login required]
• ATLA Religion Database [login required]
• Google
• Intute Religion

How to select the search tool that best meets your needs

Before beginning your search, it is essential to have some idea of the nature and scope of the various resources and tools at your disposal. Which tool you use will depend on the nature of your search. For example, it is no use searching the Queen’s library catalogue for a journal title (because it doesn’t list journal titles).

The six resources listed above are all different. They differ in the nature of their content, the subjects they cover, the breadth of their coverage, the sophistication of their search options, and the quality of their content. Ask yourself the question: What is this resource good for? What sort of results might I reasonably expect from it? To help you to begin this process, have a look at the summary of the six resources in the Table.

Aids to searching

Databases and search engines offer a wide variety of aids to searching. Some of these are fairly standard (e.g. the use of inverted commas for phrase-searching), but others will differ depending on which resource you are using. The list below is not intended to be comprehensive, but it will act as a useful checklist.

• Phrase searching                           e.g. “war and peace”
• Truncation symbols                       e.g. child*
• Wild card symbols                         e.g. globali?ation
• Boolean operators (and, or, not)     e.g. chaplaincy NOT hospital
• Proximity connectors                     e.g. hospital N5 chaplain
• Limit by date                                e.g. post 1990
• Limit by language                          e.g. English language only
• Limit by type of record                    e.g. book review
• Limit search to bibliographic record
• Expand search to include full text
• Ranking options                               e.g. by date

 

For further information about aids to searching as they apply to each resource, look out for the context-sensitive Help button (or equivalent) which is usually provided.

Queen’s catalogue

University catalogue

Ebsco

ATLA

Google

Intute Religion

The nature of the bibliographic record

The bibliographic record (sometimes known as metadata) is best understood in terms of what it is not. It is not the thing itself. It is not the full text. It is not the book. It is not the article. It represents these things, and it describes them, but it is distinct from them.  It acts as a link between you and them, and more often than not it is what enables you to find them.

In a library catalogue, the bibliographic record is the catalogue record. The catalogue record represents – and describes – the book. When you enter a search term on the catalogue, the search term is matched against the catalogue records, not the books themselves. As a finding tool, the library catalogue is only as good as its catalogue records.

Have a look at the following record from the Queen’s library catalogue. What you see is what you get. What is this book about? Readers of David Adam will know that he writes on Celtic spirituality, so it is a fair bet that this book will have something to do with Celtic spirituality. But entering “Celtic spirituality” as a search phrase will not retrieve this record. It is important to bear in mind the limitations of the bibliographic record.

Fortunately most bibliographic records are fuller than this one. Usually the title will more accurately reflect the subject of the book, and often keywords or subject headings are added which act as additional potential matches for the searcher. On some databases an abstract is provided, which is likely to be a rich source of extra words and phrases.

It is important to be clear about whether you are searching bibliographic records or full text. When you search a library catalogue, you are clearly searching bibliographic records, but when you search Ebsco, an online journals database, you have a choice. And it makes a difference. Searching the full text will produce more results, but some of those results are likely to be of marginal relevance. Your choice will depend on how specific your search terms are. For example, try searching for the phrase “Fresh expressions” on Ebsco. Then select the option to search within the full text. Compare your results.

Tick the box to search within the full text of articles on Ebsco:

The concept of a “keyword”

A “key word” (two words) means simply “an important word”. A “keyword” (one word) has a more technical meaning in the context of subject searching, but nevertheless it can mean different things for different databases.

It may refer to a specific field in the bibliographic record

It may refer to anywhere in the bibliographic record or the full text

Have a look at the following record from the Queen’s library catalogue. Note the contents of the Keywords field. The Keywords field is a specific field within the catalogue record, and often it is not used at all. So we do not recommend that you restrict your search to this field (though this is an option in the Advanced Search).

But now have a look at the Birmingham University catalogue search screen. What does it mean when it invites you to enter a search term in the Keyword box? Here the concept of keyword is used differently, and means a word which occurs anywhere in the catalogue record.

The concept of a “subject heading”

A “subject heading” in the context of subject searching has a specific technical meaning. It refers to a special, agreed language which is used in the indexing of a particular collection, and for which there is a specific field in the bibliographic record. Using this special language (sometimes referred to as a “controlled vocabulary”), one word or phrase is used consistently to describe a particular subject, rather than the several different words or phrases which may be used in everyday language.

Subject headings are added to the bibliographic record by an indexer, and are only added if the book or article described is really relevant to the subject. Thus, once you have discovered the subject heading which is used for the subject you are looking for, you will be able to retrieve all the most relevant records in the database.

The use of subject headings within a database represents added value. They are a powerful search aid which sets the database a level above those search engines which do not use them. This explains why some databases, such as Ebsco and ATLA, charge a subscription fee. The key to using these databases effectively is to hunt around for subject headings, and to follow their links. For example, imagine that you are interested in workplace chaplaincy. Try the following search on Ebsco:

workplace and chaplain*

(Note: the use of the link work “and” ensures that the search terms are retrieved in any order and regardless of whether or not they occur together. The asterisk is the truncation symbol, and ensures that chaplain, chaplaincy etc are retrieved.)

Have a look at the records retrieved by clicking on the title of each. One of the records looks like this:

The subject headings act as hot links, so if you click on them, you will retrieve all the records which have been indexed with them. There are a number of headings here which may be relevant to your subject, but which it might not have occurred to you to use as search terms.

The search strategy

Now that we have a clearer understanding of how databases work, and how our search terms relate to the bibliographic record, we can begin to see how important browsing (or serendipity) is to the process of subject searching. It is worth taking some time to think about your search strategy before you begin, and then developing it in response to the results that you get:

• expand your list of potential keywords
• use a mind map to help you develop your search strategy
• broaden or narrow your search as appropriate

Taking chaplaincy as an example, you might start with the following:

Chaplain, chaplains, chaplaincy, clergy, pastor, minister, ministry

If you are interested in a particular sector of chaplaincy, you might add the following:

Hospital, hospitals, health

Industrial, workplace, city

College, university, student, further education, higher education, FE, HE, school

If the database you are using includes subject headings, you may find the following:

Chaplains, Hospital

Chaplains, Industrial

College chaplains

Military chaplains

Prison chaplains

School chaplains

If your topic is highly specific (e.g. prison chaplaincy), and your search is producing no results, you will need to think laterally. If you are searching a full text database, try searching the full text. If you are searching a library catalogue, think about looking for books on a more general topic, such as chaplaincy, which might include a chapter on the more specific topic, prison chaplaincy, even if the catalogue record gives no indication of this.

Searching by class number

Another way of doing a subject search on the Queen’s library catalogue is to identify class numbers. As we have seen, class numbers represent subjects, so identifying class numbers is rather like identifying subject headings. Imagine that your topic is bereavement ministry. Enter the following search:

Bereave*

(Note: the asterisk is the truncation symbol, and ensures that bereaved, bereavement etc are retrieved.)

Have a look at the results. Although this search produces quite a lot of different class numbers, you will see that some of them recur more than others. You may be able to identify the following clusters: 254.6, 264.64, 362.15.

Try entering these numbers individually as search terms, and have a look at the results. Can you identify the subject represented by each number?

254.6           (Christian) pastoral care of the dying and bereaved

264.64         funeral liturgy (amongst other topics)

362.15         (secular) counselling of the dying and bereaved

Searching by class number works better for some subjects than others, and should be used in addition to, rather than instead of, keyword searching. The best thing is to use both.

And finally …

Searching a database is essentially an interaction between the database and the searcher. Neither is perfect. The limitations of indexing, analysis, functionality and language all conspire to make perfect searching an impossible dream. Perseverance is the key to making the best of this imperfect world.

Part 3 : Searching the databases

In this section we look in more detail at searching three particular databases. The intention is not to provide a comprehensive guide to all the functionality, but rather to present enough information to get started and to apply what we have learned about searching in the previous section. Bear in mind that all the databases provide their own comprehensive Help facilities, and these should be your first port of call.

Ebsco [login required]

Ebsco is a full text database of online journals. This means that when you search Ebsco, you should be able to access the full text of articles at the click of the mouse. It is this one-stop-shop aspect of Ebsco which makes it such a convenient resource.

But sometimes the full text is not available. There are two possible reasons for this:

• Early issues of a journal have been indexed but not digitised
• The publisher has delayed the release of the most recent issue(s) to protect their print subscriptions

If you cannot access the full text, or if you simply want to check the availability of a particular journal title on Ebsco, click on the Publications link and select from the alphabetical list. This is also the easiest way to find an article for which you have a reference. For example, select E for the journal Ethics:

Then browse down the alphabetical list. You will see that there is a 12 month delay on the release of the full text of the journal Ethics.

Click on the title of the journal to find articles.

Searching Ebsco

Now have a look at the Basic Search screen. Note the following options, which you can select by ticking the relevant box:

• “Also search within the full text of the articles”. This means that your search terms will be matched against the full text, not just the bibliographic record. It will produce more results, but they are likely to be less relevant.
• “Full text”. This enables you to eliminate from your list of results those records for which the full text is not available.
• “Peer reviewed”. This enables you to restrict your results to articles from high quality, academic journals.
• “Published date from”. This enables you to restrict your results by date.

Now look at the Advanced Search screen. Here there is an additional option to select from a drop-down list of Document Types. This is particularly useful if you are looking for book reviews:

The Basic Search offers a single search box, and your search terms are matched against the whole bibliographic record. But the Advanced Search gives you the option of selecting fields to search within the bibliographic record.

If you are unsure of the correct form of a heading, you can browse the indexes by clicking on More, selecting one or more headings from the index, and clicking on the Add button to add them automatically to your search. This is particularly useful for selecting Subject Terms (i.e. subject headings) which refer to books of the bible:

Click on More to browse indexes.

Select an index from the drop-down list, enter your search terms, tick the box to select your chosen headings, and click on the Add button to add the headings to your search.

The Result List Screen

 

The results are displayed in the centre of the screen. They are displayed in date order, with the most recent articles listed first, but you can select an alternative order from the drop-down list. Click on the title to view the full bibliographic record. The HTML Full Text link (when available) takes you directly to the full text of the article. The PDF Full Text link takes you to an online PDF (print copy) version of the full text. To save an article to your Folder, click the Add to Folder link at the bottom of the result.

You are also presented with options to limit your results:

• Full Text (= only show results for which the full text is available)
• Peer reviewed (= only show results from peer reviewed journals)
• Filter by publication date

Select any of the limiters displayed and click Update Results.

 

Click here to view contents of folder

 

Other options

There are many other options for you to explore on Ebsco. Use the Help facility to find out how to set up your own Ebsco account (“My EBSCOhost”). This will enable you to:

• Save searches between sessions
• Set up a “Search Alert”, so that Ebsco notifies you by email when a new article is added to the database which matches your search
• Set up a “Journal Alert” so that Ebsco notifies you by email when the latest issue of a journal is added to the database

Also explore the options for printing, downloading, emailing, and exporting your results to one of the standard bibliographic software packages such as ProCite.

ATLA [login required]

ATLA is a bibliographic database. It is the most comprehensive index to journal literature in the field of theology and religion. It is not a full text database, but links are provided to online content, where available, through the University of Birmingham. It is important to note that references to locating an item, to connecting to the catalogue at “your library” and to “Find it! Bham” refer to the University and not to Queen’s. Any problems you encounter connecting to online content should be referred to the University’s IT Help Desk.

You should also be aware that many of the articles indexed by ATLA will not be available in Birmingham at all. You are welcome to make use of the interlibrary loans services provided by the University and by the public library service, but you will need to pay for them. The idea of ATLA is not that you should follow up all the references that you find, but rather that you should find sufficient information in the bibliographic record to determine which references are worth following up and which are not.

Searching ATLA

The Basic Search offers three search boxes: Keyword, Author, and Title. If you search by Keyword, your search term(s) will be matched against the Title, Subject, and Notes indexes.

The Advanced Search gives you the option of selecting fields to search within the bibliographic record. Note that there is a wide range of fields available to search on ATLA, including several types of subject heading. The Subject index includes all the different types of subject heading. Note in particular a special feature of ATLA, the Scripture Citation subject heading, which enables you to search for references to individual verses or a range of verses.

If you are unsure of the correct form of a heading, you can browse the indexes by clicking on the Browse Index button at the end of the line.

the Browse Index button

Enter a search term, click on Browse, and select a heading from the index to add it automatically to your search.

The Advanced Search screen also offers options to limit the results of your search, some of which you will recognise from Ebsco. For example, you can select “Review” from the Document Type drop-down list.

 

The Result List Screen

The results are displayed in date order, with the most recent articles listed first, but you can select an alternative order by clicking on the Sort button [top left]. Click on the title to view the full bibliographic record. Note also the Related Subjects button [to the right of the Sort button]. This enables you to browse the database by subject headings suggested by your results. To save a record, tick the box to the left to mark it. To locate the article, click on the See more details for locating this item link, but bear in mind this links only to Birmingham University resources. Sometimes you will be better off checking the Queen’s list of current journals or the Ebsco database.

Other options

There are many other options for you to explore on ATLA. Use the Help facility to find out how to set up your own ATLA account (“My Account”). This will enable you to save searches between sessions.

Also explore the options for printing, downloading, emailing, and exporting your results to one of the standard bibliographic software packages such as ProCite.

 

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a tool for searching scholarly literature. It is one of Google’s portfolio of search engines, and employs the same powerful search technology as Google to dig deep into the text of online documents and to retrieve results with amazing speed.

But it should be used with caution for a number of reasons:

• Although wide ranging, it is in no sense comprehensive. One of its weaknesses is that it does not reveal which sources it indexes.
• Unlike subscription databases, it lacks the value-added search options which subject headings provide. Even the Advanced Search options are quite limited when compared with Ebsco and ATLA.
• Many of the results which it produces are likely to be difficult or impossible to locate, for a variety of reasons.

Nevertheless, it is a useful additional resource when used alongside subscription databases, and is likely to be particularly useful to Queen’s students for subjects which fall outside the theological mainstream.

Searching Google Scholar

Although Google Scholar does not create visible “bibliographic records”, each document does nevertheless have associated computer-generated “metadata” which does a similar job. Much of this data is of no interest to the searcher, but the distinction between the “full text” of the document (which for Google doesn’t necessarily mean the whole of the text of a large document) and individual fields (Title, Author, Journal Title etc) is worth bearing in mind.

The basic search is a “full text” search.

In the Advanced Scholar Search it is possible to limit the search:

• to Title
• by date
• by subject area

In the example below, the option to search only in the title of the article has been selected:

The results fall into four categories:

Articles            links to bibliographic records of articles

Books              links to Google Books (usually in Preview)

Citations          links to references in which the result of the search has been cited

Documents     links to web-based documents [pdf]

Have a look at the examples below. The first result is a citation. It links to documents in which the original article has been cited. It also links to “related articles” i.e. articles which Google judges to be related on the basis of its internal ranking system. Finally there are links to enable the searcher to import the reference into RefWorks, or to order the article itself from the British Library (at full cost). But there isn’t a great deal of information to go on. There is no summary or abstract, and not even a full reference. And before you go out and buy it, check the list of current journals in the Queen’s library. You will find the Journal of Pastoral Care (2001) on the shelf.

The second result is a PDF document, with a direct link to the full text of an open source Unesco journal. This is a piece of good fortune. Many of the articles retrieved by Google Scholar are from subscription journals, and when you follow the link, you are invited to log in to a database to which Queen’s students do not have access. If this happens it is worth checking Birmingham University’s elibrary to see if they subscribe. If they do, you will have access to the content of the article.

You are now ready to progress to the exercise…