This is why classes need library instruction
Student: I can’t find any scholarly articles on this subject!
Me: Okay, what’s the subject?
Student: Creating a culture of sharing in west-coast technological companies.
Me: Alright, and what/where have you tried searching?
Student: I searched “creating a culture of sharing in west-coast technological companies” on the library website!
Me:
I’m still mad about this because it happens frequently. Students at all levels of education need library and research instruction–they should get it before graduating high school, they should be getting it in several different classes in college, and there should be something in grad school–seriously, there are people in my master’s program who don’t know anything besides Google.
And don’t say “they should have learned in [previous level of university education].” Do you think every person continues education within a few years of their first degree? THEY DON’T. Even if they did get a then-good introduction to research, you think nothing changed between 2008 and 2018? How about the doctoral student I met today whose last degree–and last experience with academic libraries–was in 1996? How about the guy in my master’s cohort who got his bachelor’s degree in 1987?
Because look. See that very specific topic the student wanted? There may or may not be actual scholarly articles about it. But here are a few things you can do:
First, zoom out. Start broad. Pick a few phrases or keywords, like “tech companies” and “culture.” See what comes up.
Actually, back up. First, does your library’s website search include articles, or do you have to go into a database? My library’s website searches some of our 200+ databases, but not all. And you’ll need to find (in advance search or adjustable limiters that pop up after your initial search) how to limit your search to scholarly and/or peer-reviewed articles.
What other keywords are related or relevant? For the search above, you could use a combination of “silicon valley,” “company/ies” or “organization/s,” “sharing,” “collaborative,” “workplace culture,” “social culture,” “organizational culture,” and those are just the ones I can come up with off the top of my head.
Did you find something that looks promising? Great! What kind of subjects/keywords are attached (usually to the abstract, sometimes in the description section of the online listing)? Those can give you more ideas of what to search. Does it cite any articles? Look at those! Some databases (ilu ProQuest) will also show you a selection of related/similar articles.
If you’re researching a very specific topic, you may not find any/many articles specifically about your subject. You may, for example, have to make do with some articles about west-coast tech companies’ work cultures, and different articles about creating sharing/collaborative environments.
That said, this student did the right thing: they tried what they knew to do, and then reached out for help.
They tried what they knew to do, and then reached out for help.
I get goddamn professors pulling this shit, there is not one single level in the academy where research literacy isn’t lacking.
Also: Everyone has forgotten how to browse the stacks. As in, find a book that’s relevant, go to the stacks, then look at what’s near it on the shelf. You will find stuff that way that would never turn up on a search. It really works and can be a useful supplement to electronic research even though it involves your corporeal form and books made out of paper.
my law school requires a legal research class. you take it as a 1L, and it’s mandatory. you are signed up for it automatically along with all your other 1L courses. it’s a wise thing to do, because you’re fucked as a lawyer if you don’t know to find, you know, the law.
I have a library and information science degree, which I often refer to as a degree in google, and I’m only being a little facetious with that. I often impress people with my ability to find things online, but it’s only because I’ve taken so many classes in research methods that I know how to phrase a search well. It’s so important, not just in school!
Goddammit there is so much information and so many way to access it that it burns my biscuits when we don’t give students the tools they need to succeed at this. Hell yeah all y’all above!
And here’s what I’ve got to add:
Ask a Librarian
Seriously guys librarians are here to help. We would love to help you find the right resource for your particular informational need and we’ve been trained to do so as efficiently and effectively as possible. Nowadays you don’t even have to go to the library in person as many libraries offer online chat services as well as the option to contact via email. Further, and I think very importantly we are dedicated to our patrons rights to privacy. To quote the American Library Association the “rights of privacy are necessary for intellectual freedom and are fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship.”
Search the Stacks
This is one of my favorite ways to immerse myself in an area of study. While a good subject or keyword search will lead you to some good results sometimes is just as fruitful to go the library and plunk yourself down in section and browse all the books in a topic area. Libraries will label the (book)stacks based on whichever classification system they use and you can use the links below to figure out which area of the stacks you’ll want to look through.
Dewey: used in public libraries
LOC /Library of Congress: classification system used in university libraries
http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit03/libraries03_04.phtml
Online Books
Some websites like gutenberg project are dedicated to making public domain books accessible to the public. Using the search term public domain books is a good way to go about looking for more sources of them. Open sourced is another good term to use when trying to find freely accessible books online and that’s not just limited to fiction books but textbooks are also offered by various sites.
Project Gutenberg is an online archive of tens of thousands of books that have enter the public domain that can be freely accessed.
Openstax is one website that provides access to Higher Ed and AP open sourced textbooks.
Libguides and Pathfinders
As stated above librarians are in the business of connecting people to resources. If we can’t do so in person then we also do so by creating guides that can be found and used when we aren’t around. These guides are filled with search terms, books, articles, reviews, lists, links, and anything else we think would be helpful for patrons trying to explore a particular topic area.
Pathfinder is a particular term used for these guides. Libguides is a particular platform which to host these guides. Using either word at the end of your search terms online will bring up guides that have been created in that particular subject area. Or you can explore libguides directly with your search terms to find what guides librarians across the country have created.
Note: Using pathfinder in your search terms may pull up resources about Paizo Publishing’s same titled tabletop RPG series and while dragons are cool you can modify your search to library pathfinder to exclude these resources.
Other than using a search engine or libguides directly I find a great many pathfinders on university library sites. Usually what I do is find a university’s library webpage, find their pathfinder/research guides/guides section, and then browse through their lists of guides. These are generally organized by field of study so just pick the one you are interested in and look through the resources they have listed.
Some of the resources will be accessible for anyone while some might be locked for students of the particular university. If the article, book, or resource is locked by a school portal you can either search for it online outside of the university portal or you can go to your own university/public library to see if they have access to the resource there. Even if they don’t have it currently in their collection libraries are often connected with other branches and may be able to request an interlibrary loan of what you need.
Online Reference Resources
Sometimes the problem isn’t finding information but finding good information. Below are two sites that I use regularly to help me with this issue when searching online for resources.
The Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association gives a list of the best free reference sites on the internet
The Ipl2 is a good authoritative source to find general information on a variety of topics. Even though the website is no longer updating there are still a plethora of subject guides that can be explored.
Open Sourced Journals and Articles
Just as there are open sourced books and textbooks so too are there open sourced journals and articles available. Again you can add the term open sourced when searching for these resources.
DOAJ is the Directory of Open Access Journals and you can search through here to find both articles and journals freely available to access.
Journal Article Tips
Finally whenever I’m searching through journal articles there are a few things I always like to keep in mind.
Build context. Once you find an article that is relevant to your search you can do this by exploring the citations. Both those that the article you are using references in its bibliography and those that reference the article itself.
Every database is going to do this differently but generally with a few clicks you can find out who has cited an article that you have read. If nothing else try popping the title of your article into google scholar and you’ll see a blue ‘Cited by’ below the description. Also in some cases you can click on the author directly in a database to see what else they have written in the subject. Totally ask your librarian for help navigating the particular database you are using again they will be stoked to do so.
Building this context of literature by finding and reading these extra articles is important to building a critical understanding of your topic and will allow you to build the best possible defense of your arguments. This will also allow you to see if the article you’ve initially selected is in itself a viable position or if it is an outlier of its field.
If you can try and find reviews of literature articles and special issue/special topic editions of journals. These are your best friends in the resource world as these types of articles and journals compile a great deal of information on particular topic in a tiny space. They are immensely helpful in building context in an area of thought and useful to finding out what to read further to be informed in an area of study. Add those words to your search terms to see if you can get some useful resources.
This is called information literacy and it’s wild to me that anywhere in the U.S. you don’t learn this in your entry level general education Englihshc course because it’s like…part of the standards. That you have to teach them how to do this. So uh. Y’all really need to start reporting on instructors who don’t. Because uh. Yeah.
Very genuinely ALL OF THIS. I’m a university writing tutor and half of the students who come to me for help with papers are coming specifically for help with finding sources.
In an average day, I see seven to eight students. Half of them are there, having booked a full hour, for what they think will be this monumental task. It takes me maybe fifteen minutes to teach them how to use key words, what and where the databases are, and the differences between the types.
I wish it were just the freshies, but it’s not. I’ve had students in grad programs coming in for help because their professors won’t allow them to Google sources. I’ve started making a point to run through how to use the databases during my class visits to let students know about tutoring services. And don’t get me started on how many students think ASKING OUR RESEARCH LIBRARIANS FOR HELP IS JUST A VEILED WAY TO SAY “GO BOTHER THEM”.
I’m halfway to my wit’s end with it. Why my university doesn’t have a required research lit class, particularly since they’re trying to be an up-and-coming research university, is beyond me.
PS: @commasameleon It’s not taught in American Universities or Colleges because there’s a general assumption that they learned how to do all of this in high school.
Spoiler Alert: they almost never learn how to do it in high school.
