So, that's why Dr. Allen wants Bryan to use several different types of information sources in his research: maybe some books for historical background and an overview of the subject, some articles for the most recent research, and some websites that might highlight special research projects or professional associations in his area.
Unfortunately, there is no single tool that Bryan can use to find all these things (books, articles and websites). Let's discuss what tools Bryan needs to use to find each type of source.
First
of all, Bryan needs to find out what books are available in the library. Luckily,
there is a list of all the things in library. This list, which is searched
using a computer, is called an online catalog. In Chapter
4 of this tutorial, you'll learn how to search Jackson Library's catalog to
find out what we have in our collections.
Professor
Allen also said that articles from scholarly journals, magazines
and newspapers were good information sources for Bryan to use. Journals,
magazines and newspapers have something in common. They are all types
of periodicals.
To search for information in periodicals, you can't use the online catalog (the one we used for books). You need a periodical database. Chapter 5 of this tutorial covers periodical databases: what they are and how to search them.
Websites
were another possible source of information that Professor Allen suggested.
The World Wide Web can be a fun place to look for information, but it can
also be overwhelming. The main way to locate websites is by using internet
tools called search engines and subject
directories. We will discuss these resources in Chapter 6 of this tutorial.
