Going Green? Go to the library!

The Daily Green reminds us that libraries can help you go green! In addition to the great reasons listed in the article, here are a couple other green services from the Regis Library:

1. full text online access to thousands of journals via the library databases means no commute, no paper, no waste, and no wait!
2. Also, article requests using Loan Ranger for items not owned by the Regis Library are almost always delivered electronically as PDF files!
3. Yes, we have music CDs and motion picture DVDs for you too!

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Peer Review in Five Minutes

The librarians at North Carolina State University have put together a nice video about the peer review process and what it means to you as a student. Give it a look below!

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Whose words exactly?

I’ve linked to a few blogs below about some controversy surrounding the authorship of posts in Wikipedia. Content and politics aside, I think after reading both articles, you’ll agree that central issue of concern here is attribution: whose words are these? Anonymity on the web can be both good and bad, but for academic research its mostly bad.

Whose words are these? This is a question you will not need to ask yourself if you use the library databases. Each article you access from the library will include complete bibliographic information: author, title, source, volume and issue, date of publication, etc. This information is important in helping you determine the currency and authority of the information, and whether or not you should be using it to make conclusions or recommendations. Furthermore, knowing who the author is can also be very helpful if the topic you are searching is not widely covered in the academic literature. If all else fails, you can often contact the author directly and ask for recommended readings or updates regarding his/her research.

Wikipedia Whitewashes Obama’s Past, Fox Claims
WorldNetDaily Manufactures A Controversy
Wikipedia scrubs Obama eligibility

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Libraries and the Deep Web

The New York Time recently published the following article: Exploring a ‘Deep Web’ That Google Can’t Grasp. Some very interesting stuff here, but they forgot to mention one of the larger components of the Deep Web: Libraries. The subscription databases libraries provide access to are not indexed by Google, largely b/c you must log-in to use them first. This keeps out any spiders, crawlers, and ‘bots Google and other search engines use to scan and index the web. As the article mentions, the Deep Web represents the majority of information on the internet. Google and other search engines are only able to cover the “tip of the iceberg”. So how do you access the treasure trove of information and sources that is the Deep Web. Use the library!

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Online Adult Education Books

The Regis Library subscribes to several different online book collections. Every item in these online collections is cataloged in Lumen, the Regis Library catalog. The catalog link below includes search results for online books covering the following subject areas: adult students, adult learning, adult education, and continuing education.

Online books for subjects: adult students, adult learning, adult education, and continuing education

To access these books, click the link above. For any item in the list that looks interesting, click the highlighted underlined title. This will open the catalog record. Look for a link in the catalog record for the “Electronic Book”. You will need to log-in with your RegisNET account info before accesssing any of these books.

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Business Source Premier tutorial

For anyone researching a topic related to business, take a look at the Business Source Premier databases, which offers access to articles from thousands of different journals, magazines, and newspapers. The database also offers access to company profiles, market research reports, and industry profiles. It’s a very large database with lots of content. To help you maximize your time spent using this database, take a look at the tutorial! Brand new and just for you! Hope this helps!

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Accountability and Wikipedia: Know the score!

Check out Wired Magazine’s article Wikipedia Sleuths Win Journalism Award for Wired.com, which describes some of the more dubious edits found in Wikipedia. Using the Wikiscanner tool, citizens just like you have been able to link false statements, biased information, and dubious edits back to corporations and organizations who would like the world to believe they’ve never done any harm. This article demonstrates perfectly the vigilant attitude each one of us needs to take when it comes to absorbing and assessing information. Keeping a critical eye towards information sources that have not been vetted, and that have limited authority over content and subject matter is a basic skill in the world of information literacy.

As always, its worth pointing out that the resources and information found on the Regis Library website come from sources you can trust. There is plenty of good stuff on the web, but also lots of junk, so we’ve taken the best of the best, and put it in a single spot for you at the library. So if you are not sure where to start your research, look to us first!

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New library tutorial for Nonprofit Management!

Hey, are you thinking about doing some research on Nonprofits? Looking for information related to philanthropy? Want to find contact information for NGOs? Then take a look at the library’s tutorial for Nonprofit Management!

New EBSCOhost search interface is here!

If you’ve been searching any of the EBSCOhost database this week, you’ve probably noticed they rolled out their new search interface. The library is prepared for the changes, and most of our handouts and tutorials have already been updated to reflect the changes. We’ve added a new tutorial (Accounting!) , and changed the format and content of some of the older tutorials. We are also busy working on tutorials for the Business Source Premier database and for resources covering Not-For-Profit Management. So if you haven’t had a look yet at our tutorials, or if your just looking for some more helpful research tips, then make sure to look at our research tutorials page!

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Primary versus secondary sources

When conducting research on your topic, it is often helpful to consider the type of documents you need. One distinction to make is whether or not you need to refer to primary or secondary resources. Take a look at the following web pages from other university websites that offer good definitions for primary and secondary sources.

1. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources (University of Maryland).
2. How To Distinguish Between Primary and Secondary Sources (University of California Santa Cruz)
3. Research Help: Primary vs. Secondary Sources (Manhattan Community College)

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