Welcome Freshman

Welcome to new freshman and welcome back to our returning students. Here at Steen Library the research librarians are here to help you with your resource needs. The Ask-A-Librarian desk located on the 1^st floor in the Research Room (Steen Library Map) is great for walk-in research help and the phone number is 468-7299. You can also use the Ask-A-Librarian form to get help online. Subject specialty assistance is as easy as contacting your liaison contact. We are here to help you have a great and successful semester!

There is a new and easier way to find books at Steen Library.

On Monday, July 12^th, the library rolled out a new library catalog called SteenFind. SteenFind will allow faculty, staff and students to search for books and other library materials faster and easier than before by combining the advantages of the traditional structure of library catalogs with the ease of search engines.

Check out the new catalog at http://library.sfasu.edu/find/.

SteenFind will feature patron empowerment services and we believe will greatly enhance your search for materials. Please contact me or any of the Research librarians if you have any questions or comments.

You are now entering "The Quiet Zone"

A new Quiet Zone hits the fourth floor of Steen Library. Looking for a quiet study space away from the bustling crowds? Check out the entire fourth floor of the Steen Library which is now reserved for quiet study, free from the distractions of service desks, study groups, and cell phone conversations. Students can find a peaceful oasis with tables, study rooms, and study carrels throughout the floor. Last fall a library survey was conducted which revealed library users were unhappy with the ongoing noise levels in the library and other distracting activities that are counterproductive to individual study.

The Twilight Zone themed “Quiet Zone” was a design created by Ms. Devon Skinner a senior from Dallas, enrolled in the Illustration class taught by Aloma Marquis last fall. Quiet Zone signage will be placed on the fourth floor and furniture will be arranged in a manner conducive to individual study.

The second and third floors are available for group studying.

Success will be determined by the self-disciplined actions of library users, but any of the library service point, like the Circulation or InfoDesk, can be told about abuses. We are encouraging all library users to enjoy this new space especially during the stressful weeks ahead before finals.

Let us know what you think about the Quiet Floor or suggestions to make it better.

Susan Clarke Head of Research and Instructional Services sclarke@sfasu.edu rm. 202g (936) 468-1459

Argue like a Pro with "Opposing Viewpoints"

Opposing Viewpoints is a database that presents both sides of controversial issues. It is a good starting point for choosing a topic, getting an overview, and finding related material. The series can be useful for writing speeches and debating. "Opposing Viewpoints" links to recommended websites, so it provides some “quality control” for the Web.

To get to it, click on the Databases A - Z on the Library home page. Scroll down to the O section and click on Opposing Viewpoints.

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology

What to do When “No” is the Wrong Answer

Sometimes while doing some online research the database you are using will return no hits. You may see a message saying:

“No matches found”

“No records matched your search”

“No results were found”

This can be frustrating when you need the right answer, right article, or just the right book. Fortunately, there are a few of quick steps you can take when “No….” is the wrong answer.

First, check your spelling, most of the time when a database can’t find anything matching your query it is because you misspelled something. While Steen Library does not currently have any books on kenisiology it does have several about kinesiology. With Google You can find almost 3500 web pages about kenisiology, you might want use one of the 930,000 or so pages Google returns for kinesiology.

If you are still getting no hits on your search your next step is to make sure you are using the right database. When doing online research the axiom “use the right tool for the right job” holds true. If you want to find a book in Steen Library, use the library’s catalog. If you need a journal article, use a “General Database” or “Subject Database” listed on one of the library’s “Subject Guides.” If you need a web site check the “Websites” section of one of the Subject Guides, or use a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

Next, make sure you are using the right terminology. Many times when searching refereed or scholarly journals searchers will use different terms than those used in the discipline. While you may tell someone you broke your collarbone, you would probably want to find the latest treatment methods by searching for articles about a broken clavicle.

Of course, you can always Ask A Librarian. Whether you Ask A Librarian at the beginning so you can get the information you need faster, or wait and ask as a last resort, the librarians at Steen Library are ready to help.

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology

Related Posts:
RIS Recommends: Find a 4 Letter Word in the Library: HELP!
RIS Recommends: Quick Tips for Searching

Burn This Book

Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, edited by Toni Morrison

Burn This Book has been chosen as the NetLibrary Book of the Month for October in acknowledgment of Banned Books Week (26 September – 3 October). Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of our First Amendment rights and our freedom to access information through reading.

Burn This Book is a collection of essays by prominent literary artists who discuss the importance of expressing ideas from various social and/or political viewpoints free from the fear of censorship. Emphasis is placed on both the importance of writing about real situations and the difference that writing can make. Contributors to Burn This Book include Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman, and others.

This book is a must-have for librarians, teachers, and aspiring writers! Burn This Book will be available for free through NetLibrary until October 31, 2009 so be sure to take a look!
To Access NetLibrary via Steen Library you should first go to the Steen Library home page at: http://libweb.sfasu.edu then click on the Databases A-Z list on the left side of the page.

Once the database page appears click on the letter N or scroll down the list of databases until you arrive at the listing for Net Library.

Off campus, users will need to access NetLibrary and the library website via mySFA to gain access. After ther first visit to NetLibrary users can set up a personal account that will allow them to access NetLibrary anytime they are off campus without going through mySFA.

Other posts about Net Library on the RIS Recommends Blog include:

The Naked Roommate by Tina Oswald
eAudiobooks,NetLibrary and You by Kayce Halstead
SFA Internet Books by Bernice Wright

Erica Lopez z_lopezer@titan.sfasu.edu rm. 202j (936) 468-6270 Subjects - Anatomy & Physiology, Astronomy, Biology, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Limnology, Math/Statistics, Microbiology, Physics, Zoology

CRS Reports Congress' not so Secret Weapon for First Class Research

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA) today sent letters to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), thanking them for introducing S. Res. 118, legislation to allow no-fee public access to taxpayer-funded Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports.

The CRS produces well-researched and balanced reports on a wide variety of current issues affecting our citizens and country. Unfortunately, CRS reports are not systematically made freely available to the public through the Federal Depository Library Program or any other means. No-fee public access to these reports has been a goal the ALA has pursued for many years.

The CRS home page describes its service to congress as providing independent and professional "analytic capabilities" with the capability to "integrate multiple disciplines and research methodologies. In a fast-paced, ever-changing environment,". The site goes on to say that the "CRS approaches complex topics from a variety of perspectives and examines all sides of an issue. Staff members analyze current policies and present the impact of proposed policy alternatives, even if it means bringing to light facts that may be contrary to established assumptions. With public policy issues growing more complex and political debate turning more contentious, the need for insightful and comprehensive analysis of the issues has become vital. Congress relies on CRS to marshal interdisciplinary resources, encourage critical thinking, and create innovative frameworks to help legislators form sound policies and reach decisions on a host of difficult issues."

Wouldn't it be great if you could get access to this type of information on issues not ten years after the event in a book or filtered, slanted, or chopped up into sound bites as so often happens in political reporting of the day? Well at the risk of losing my ALA membership card, I will let you in on a librarian secret. You can get access to thousands of CRS reports that have already been released, or leaked to the public. Most of them would be difficult if not impossible to find using Google. Fortunately, several libraries and organizations have created online collections of these reports for public access on the Internet. Finding the right report for your research involves choosing the right collection of CRS reports to search.

Full text PDF versions of thousands of CRS reports are available at the OpenCRS site http://opencrs.com/. They act as a clearinghouse or central access point for CRS reports however, they do not have all the reports that are available online. While this source appears to have the most current overall coverage, subject access is provided by many groups including the ones listed on the OpenCRS collections page. http://opencrs.com/collections/

According to the web site OpenCRS
http://opencrs.com/ taxpayers pay nearly $100 million dollars a year to fund the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress.

• National Council for Science and the Environment/National Library for the Environment
  http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRS/
  


• Thurgood Marshall Law Library/University of Maryland School of Law
  http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/index.html
  


• US Department of State Foreign Press Centers (FPC)
  http://fpc.state.gov/c18183.htm, PEPFAR
  CRS Reports,
  


• Franklin Pierce Law School Intellectual Property, Cyberlaw, and Electronic Commerce
  


• Federation of American Scientists Intelligence, Military and National Security
  

Two other clearing houses for CRS reports include the massive Archive IT directory (http://www.archive-it.org/collections/1078) and the web site WikiLeaks which reportedly uploaded 7000 CRS reports recently. The collection of CRS reports at the WikiLeaks site provides not only a full text search of the reports, but an alpabetical list, and (possibly the most significant contribution for research and analysis) a chronological listing of CRS reports.

For those who want to be sure that no virtual stone is left unturned you may want to do one final search with a Google Scholar. Use the advanced search feature with "Congressional Research Service" as an author. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&num=30&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=Congressional+Research+Service&safe=off

When you need some of the best and most current information Congressional Research Service reports a hard to beat. Now you have a secret weapon of sources for your research papers that is sure to impress your teachers and improve your grade.

This blog will self-destruct in 10 seconds…

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology

Quick Tips for Searching

Quick Tips.....for internet searching or the library database searching.

Help screens are often difficult to find and even harder to understand for most databases these days.

However, there are a few hints to help you get started with most databases and search engines.

1. Use the "keyword" option when available.


2. Connect keywords with [AND] [OR] or eliminate unwanted terms using [NOT]. For example, if I want to know, why the sky is blue, my search phrase could be [sky AND blue].
   
   
3. Use quotation marks to search for specific phrases such as "irregular warfare".



4. Truncation symbols are *, ?, !, #, $. The most common being the * character. For example, if I want to search for how many men cook, I would use the search phrase men AND cook*. The * character can take the place of on letter or many letters. For example the search phrase cook* would find the words cooks, cooking, cooker. cookware, cooked, cookies or cookable.



5. Stopwords are bad so do not use in, a, the, an in your search phrase.



6. Field searching means selecting the keywords in the "Title field", or "subject field" , or "author field" or something like it. These options are usually available through the "advanced searching" link or tab.

	Marthea Turnage mturnage@sfasu.edu rm. 202c 936.468.1896 Subjects - Accounting, Criminal Justice, Economics and Finance, General Business, Law, Management/Marketing/International Business, Nursing, Psychology

Find a 4 Letter Word in the Library: HELP!

• We Are Here To Help
  
  Ever get that feeling that the only time a person is really there to help you is when it is convenient for them? That is why the Research Librarians in the Steen Library are there when it is convenient for you! We have set hours when there is a Research Librarian stationed at the Reference Desk on the first floor of the Steen Library. You say you have never seen the Reference Desk? Ever notice the desk over to the left as you walk in the front door of the Steen Library? Over it, in nice, big letters, is Ask-A-Librarian. That is the Reference Desk!!
  
  
  The Librarian hours are:
• Monday to Thursday—8 a.m. -9 p.m.
• Friday—10 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Saturday—10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Sunday—Noon-8 p.m.

If you do not see anyone at the desk during those hours, then ask at the Information Desk or Circulation Desk. They can tell you where we are, or even call us for you! We are here to help, so let us know what we can do for you!
Need us during times that we are not here? You can e-mail a Research Librarian at: https://forms.sfasu.edu/libweb/askalib.html

Sweetest Industry on Earth: The Sweet Industry Group

What do Russia, Thailand, South Korea, India, and Portugal have in common?

They are part of the "sweet industry group, chocolate confectionery". In fact, I don't think there is a country in the world that doesn't have a confectionery company making some kind of chocolate chocolate candies. A great place to find out about the chocolate industry around the world or any other type of industry, is the library resource, Marketline. Marketline currently provides 3,024 industry profiles. Each offers all sorts of info such as market volume, segmentation, forecasts, and leading companies for each industry.

As for the Russians; the sweet industry group report reveals that they favor packaged or boxed chocolates. Is their romance in the air?

	Marthea Turnage mturnage@sfasu.edu rm. 202c 936.468.1896 Subjects - Accounting, Criminal Justice, Economics and Finance, General Business, Law, Management/Marketing/International Business, Nursing, Psychology

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin, new VP candidate for the United States, and her opponent Joseph Biden ...

NEED TO KNOW MORE -

Use the library to find out more about the candidates and other influential people. Look in the library resource, Biography Resource Center (Sorry, only SFA folks can use it). When trying to find information about a person, the Biography Resource Center can offer accurate info in addition to journal articles and websites. When you need to know more about a person, go to the library. Ask a librarian.

	Marthea Turnage mturnage@sfasu.edu rm. 202c 936.468.1896 Subjects - Accounting, Criminal Justice, Economics and Finance, General Business, Law, Management/Marketing/International Business, Nursing, Psychology

In Memory of Don Richter

In Memory of a

Colleague
Friend
Gentleman
Professional
And Scholar

Don Richter
1928 - 2008

The Cornerstone of a Successful Search

When you come to the reference desk and ask a question, the first thing a librarian will do is ask some questions. This is called a "reference interview." It is t important because researchers will not always ask for what they are looking for but for what they think the library has. Sometimes they are embarrassed about the question so they ask something else. Others worry that the librarian is too busy or that they would not be able to answer the real question. So,the librarian's first goal is to help them articulate an effective question or "task definition."

Ru Story-Huffman in his article Critical Thinking, Task Definition and the Reference Interview (Higher ed) states that the reference interview is “an information contact that involves the use, recommendation, interpretation, or instruction in the use of one or more information sources; or knowledge of such sources, by a member of the reference or information staff.” (2004, pg 1). So, successfully assisting a student in task definition allows the student to work to identify their information needs. As most research fails due to poor task definition, effective research creates a usable and accurate task definition. There are three simple ways to do this.

1. Use a "Research Helper Task Definition Chart" as a way to write down the information
you need. This should be done as soon as you receive the assignment.

2. Another way to define your task is to write down the question you will answer in your paper in a one-sentence question. It needs to be clear, and have well-defined boundaries. The question "What do you have on drugs?" is not a question with well-defined boundaries, and is an example of poor task definition. "What are the physiological effects of steroid use among high school athletes?" is an example of good task definition.

3. The last technique is to imagine you have found the perfect article about your topic. This article talks about all the things you want to cover and has the answers to all your questions. Imagine the article in your mind; then write down the title of the article.

Task definition is the first step in all research. Determining what needs to “be known to reach an objective” and identifying the location of the information is what librarian’s do. We study it, we practice it, and we do it every day. Just ask, and we will help you.

In his book Real World Intelligence Herbert Meyer writes,

"One difference between failure and success is not how much you know, but rather how much you know about the right things. And figuring out the right things to know about-which is to say the things that will directly help you to reach a particular objective-is one of the trickiest, least understood, most underrated jobs in the world.... Anyone who knows how to determine what needs to be known to reach one objective can also determine what needs to be known to reach any other objective"

	R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy/Religion, Political Science/Geography

Librarian's Advice: How to Conduct an Exhaustive Literature Review in the Earth Sciences

The Earth Sciences can be a daunting field to research. Lines between disciplines often overlap or blur beyond recognition. This makes it difficult to distinguish between them. Three library faculty willing to help include: R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu (Geography) Don Richter drichter@sfasu.edu (Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Geology) and Bernice Wright bwright@sfasu.edu (Agriculture, Forestry).

In a guide on how to do literature reviews in the Earth Sciences, librarian Phil Stoffer, of the Western Earth Surface Processes Team, US Geological Survey provides six steps to conducting an exhaustive search in the Earth Sciences. "How to conduct an exhaustive literature review in the earth sciences" on the USGS web site.

We are here to help.

	R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy/Religion, Political Science/Geography
	Don Richter drichter@sfasu.edu rm. 202a 936.468.1714 Subjects - Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Geology, Mathematics/Statistics, Music, Physics/Astronomy

Bernice Wright bwright@sfasu.edu rm. 202j 936.468.1528 Subjects - Agriculture, Forestry, Human Sciences, Human Services, Speech/Communication