Tips & Tricks to make your life easier

The Library & YouThe Library & You

Tracey MayfieldFCS LibrarianCDFS 4199/22/08

Today: We Today: We willwill

• Discuss what we want to learn• Learn those things• Hopefully have fun in the process!

What do you What do you want to learn?want to learn?

• Break into groups• Each person list the things they

want to learn• Group ranks list• One person from each group comes

up and lists items on the agenda up front

SearchingSearching• Key to getting what you want• Good search = good results• Bad search = wanting to kill oneself• Tips:– And – Or– Truncation– (), “”, etc…

COASTCOAST• Aka: The library catalog• Key to finding stuff we have (mainly books)

• Key to many services we offer

DatabasesDatabases• Online tool• Finds SCHOLARLY & RELIABLE

articles and article info• Many full text articles, but not ALL• USE THE SFX BUTTON!!!!!• Always start here for article

research

GoogleGoogle• Crawls through the web to find web

sites• 99.999% not scholarly• Reliability is an issue too• Great for certain things, but not

scholarly research

Citing…What the Citing…What the *^%$@?*^%$@?

• Why?–Why do I have to?–Why do I have to do it correctly?

• How?• Where is the info?

Where to get Where to get helphelp• Reference Desk

– Check “Hours” on library website for current hours

• 24/7 Ask Now Service– Help literally 24/7 online

• ME!– Tracey Mayfield– (562) 985-8877 and/or tmayfiel@csulb.edu

Thanks for Thanks for comingcomingHappy Researching!Happy Researching!