6. How to find information sources

Welcome to Lesson 6!

This lesson has multiple pages, so it'll take a bit longer to read through. It'll probably take you about 45 to 90 minutes to read through this lesson, but how long it'll take really depends on how fast you read and how much of the material is new to you. To get to the next lesson, use the navigational links in the vertical black bar on the left, or use the link at the bottom of each page. If you are taking the tests associated with the lessons in this tutorial, then when you are ready to take a test, you'll need to navigate to the page that has LINKS TO ALL TESTS.

And now, the author would like to tell you about four things she is really eager for you to take away from this lesson:

The purpose of an academic library (like NAU's Cline Library) is to provide:
- - access to information sources like books, journal articles, magazine articles, etc.
  - access to databases for finding these information sources
There are many different types of databases for finding sources. Each has its own set of qualities and advantages.
The most effective way to search databases is to use the fewest, most essential keywords that capture your topic, and to experiment with synonyms for some of your keywords. It is this skill, more than any other, that separates expert searchers from those who are novices.
It might be easy to link through to access the full-text of a source or it might not be; whenever you have difficulties you should contact the library to get help.

Now, let's get started!

In Lesson 5 you learned some tips for choosing a topic. Now you are ready to learn how to find sources on your topic. To start, it helps to know where sources can be found and accessed. And yes, you can find lots of information sources on the internet, but many sources are only accessible from a library, so let's begin there.

Academic libraries provide access to information sources.

Almost every college and university has an academic library that purchases, stores, and provides access to information sources like paper and digital books, journals, magazines, and newspapers. These sources are used to support the research needs of students and faculty. The library also provides search-tools to help students and faculty locate the specific sources they need within the library's collections. These search tools are called databases.

At NAU, the academic library is called Cline Library and it is located on the north side of campus. Perhaps you've seen it? If not, take a look at the photos below to see the amazing transformation of the building over time.

Cline Library over time:

Cline Library - the original structure.*

Cline Library, rebuilt during its Gothic phase.*

Cline Library today (rebuilt after the Gothic phase went out of style).*

* silliness

Showing you photos of the outside of the library suggests that all of Cline Library's information sources are stored inside, but most are not. Nowadays, the majority of Cline Library's information sources are available electronically through the library's website. That's also where you can access Cline Library's databases for finding sources, and where you can find out about other library services (such as checking out laptops or reserving study rooms). So, in many ways, the website represents Cline Library much more than the physical building does.

How do students use Cline Library's website to find sources?

Suppose in one of your classes you were writing a paper on the history of jazz music. To get started with this research, you could enter search terms, or keywords, into the Quick Search box found on the library's home page (shown below). Quick Search will help you find articles, books, media, and more.

Here's how your search might look:

search on jazz music history entered into Quick Search

After running this search, you'd get a variety of results on this topic from sources like articles, books, media, etc. You might be especially interested in books on this topic, and to the right you see some of the books that appeared in your results, which were then gathered from shelves in the library. These books are in paper (or print) format. But you'd also see digitized books in your results, such as the example on the far right (The History of Jazz). No need to find this book on the library's shelves because you'll see a link to read it online right from your computer.

These books look like they would be pretty useful for learning more about jazz history, don't you agree?

Gathering information from these books to write your paper is called conducting research.

Stack of books about jazz taken from shelves in Cline Library

QUESTION 1. Cline Library provides access to books in a paper (or print) format, as well as books that are digitized and available online.

true
false

(Answer at bottom of page.)

Even though you can find and read many sources from Cline Library's website, you should stop by and check out the beautiful interior of the library (shown above) at some point.*

*more silliness

To better understand the purpose of Cline Library, it might help to think about how academic libraries differ from other types of libraries. For example, you may be familiar with school libraries if you had one in your school, or your hometown may have a public library. There are also special libraries that serve hospitals, law firms, and companies. Each of these libraries collects and provides access to the types of information sources their users need.

QUESTION 2. Even if you've never been in an academic, public, or special library before, you can probably guess how they are different. Match the library description on the right to the libraries below:

Northern Arizona University's Cline Library (Academic Library)
Flagstaff Medical Center Library (Special Library)
Flagstaff Public Library (Public Library)

A. This library provides fiction books (like mysteries and romances), popular non-fiction books, how-to books, as well as magazines, newspapers, and movies.

B. This library provides medical books and journals for doctors on staff, as well as resources to help patients understand their medical conditions and treatments.

C. This library provides scholarly books and journals covering many academic disciplines like art, biology, history, psychology, philosophy, etc.

What's next?

Learn how to IDENTIFY KEYWORDS TO SEARCH.

Answers to questions on this page:Question 1. trueQuestion 2. NAU's Cline Library - C.; Flagstaff Medical Center Library - B; Flagstaff Public Library - A

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