Name: ____________________________________  Date:_____________________  

Course Number ____________  Instructor __________________________

Becoming a competent student, and eventually a successful professional in one's field involves mastering a wide curriculum, the mores and culture of the profession, and the resources through which information about and for the profession are disseminated. Posing questions and finding answers is the beginning. This set of activities will introduce you to the process of finding and using information to complete assignments, write papers and make professional decisions. The decisions one makes are influenced by the ability to find, understand and use the knowledge of others which is communicated through books, journals, electronic databases and other information carriers. It also involves communicating with others through writing.

If you have any questions as you complete the sections of this assignment talk with your instructor and with the librarians. Read the entire worksheet and associated webpages.  Save this worksheet for later reference on using library holdings.

The popular press and news media, as well as academic writers, speak of the information economy, workers as information seekers, and of life-long-learning. By their comments they explicitly say or imply that one of the purposes of education at all levels is to provide opportunities to learn the underlying skills which contribute to an individual's information management ability.

1. Assignment: Your instructors may have given you a practice search term or an assignment topic to use for this exercise.  If not, select a topic about which you want to know more. Write the topic you have chosen here: ______________________________________ Use it as your search term(s) in the sections where one is required.

There are a variety of information sources which can be useful. Read about the information types and do these assignments.

Books - Standard texts, reference books, and topic specific books are often the starting places for background information. Some of these books are circulating books (may be borrowed); some are reference books (special types of books used in the library) and others may be on reserve (kept on Reserve on the circulation desk and borrowed for in-library use). Assignment involves finding a reference book and a circulating book.

Books in libraries are assigned subject headings and call numbers to assist in locating the topic and the book you want. Busse Library uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and call number classification schemes. If you need to know a controlled vocabulary subject heading, you may look up standard Library of Congress Subject Headings for any topic in the set of large red books on a table near the photocopiers in the library.

2. Assignment  MMC Note #A4 in the MMC Notebook (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/notebook.htm) Series summarizes the major LC subject classification. Pull up MMC Note #A4 (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/notea4.htm) to find the general main LC subject classification for books related to computer science and for sociology. 

Write the LC classification  for computer science books here:   ____________.  

Write the LC classification for sociology here: _____________.

Periodicals - Periodicals are magazines and journals which are published at specific intervals - weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or at some other specific interval. A magazine is a general interest publication while journals may be professional (news and advice for people in an occupation) or what are called scholarly or research journals. College teachers often prefer you use scholarly or research journals for many assignments. In the Busse Library some periodicals are available in electronic or microform formats instead of or as well as in print. To find specific articles you will use one or more of the periodical indexes and databases. A list of periodicals in the Busse Library relevant to major disciplines taught at MMC is found at Busse Periodical Holdings. (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/perhol.htm)  Browsing current issues of journals and magazines is part of learning about a discipline. There is one for Computer periodicals which you will use later.

Subscription Periodical Indexes and Full-text Databases - Periodical Indexes are analogous to huge combined tables of contents of many magazines, journals and sometimes newspapers. They may be print or electronic. Busse Library has both types. The electronic indexes and databases are subscriptions delivered over the internet to the Mount Mercy College network and found on the Busse Library Periodical Indexes and Other Databases (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/period.htm) webpage. They are not found by using WWW search engines. Some of these databases are available to MMC students from off-campus using passwords or through your MMC Jenzabar portal account.

3. Assignment: Open your web browser.  Internet Explorer is the browser on the Reference Area computers. Or come to the Busse Library Web (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/bussel) over the Internet. Go to the Periodical Indexes and Other Databases (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/period.htm) webpage. 

How many databases and electronic resources are available on this page? ____________   Write the names of two databases which you might use to see the latest news on computer science developments.

Other Non-print Media - Busse Library also owns videos, kits, slide sets, cd-roms (music and informational) and audio cassettes. These have call numbers like books and are in the Media Center or on Reserve at the Circulation Desk. Some magazines, journals and newspapers are on microfiche or microfilm and the fiche/film readers are near the Current Periodicals shelves. A number of journals are available only on microfiche. Assignment 21 at end of this worksheet involves finding a non-print media (video) item.

4. Assignment:  Periodical Subscriptions  Use the complete list of Busse Library Periodical Holdings in the black folders in the Reference Area and write the name of a journal in the sociology area  specifically, which is only available on microfiche or microfilm in the Busse Library. When you find citations in such journals you will need to use the microform reader. 

A.

There are copies of the entire list of journals and discipline specific lists such as 'Sociology' and 'Computers' on the Busse Library Periodical Holdings (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/perhol.htm) webpage.

B. Which of the journals and magazines on the Computers list do you look at regularly (here or elsewhere)?

WWW - The WWW is a vast unorganized warehouse of information (both scholarly and popular, good and bad, accurate and inaccurate). Libraries often select and provide suggested links to pages on specific topics. The Busse Library does this with its Desktop Reference (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/desktop.htm) Virtual Library of webpages. The links have been selected in the same way that books are selected for the library's Reference Collection. There is a specific virtual library page for the Math & Computer Department. Desktop Reference is used in Assignment 19 and WWW search engines are the subject of Assignment 20. 

News Media - Newspapers, television, radio and www news sites are often the places people first learn about many academic issues and terms. The popular press can provide clues and keywords for you to use in searching the more scholarly information sources. Among the Periodical Indexes and Other Databases (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/period.htm) to which Busse Library subscribe are links to a local Iowa newspaper database - the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

5. Assignment: Find and click the link to the Cedar Rapids Gazette on the Periodical Indexes and Other Databases page. What kinds of information may be found in this database?

People - We get most information we use in our daily personal and work lives from other people. Your instructors and librarians are useful resources. Ask the Busse Librarians for assistance and instructions. There is no reward in becoming frustrated when searching or learning to use resources. Librarians are available to work with you on big and small projects.

6. Assignment: What is the telephone extension for Reference Desk?__________________ (ask at the Reference Desk)

What is the email address for the Reference Desk? ________________________________________

Library Reserve Shelves - The library keeps a variety of books, articles and other materials on reserve at the request of instructors. Assignments are made requiring you to use these materials. These are shared resources only to be used in the library. Most may be checked out for specific time slots for you to read or photocopy.

7. Assignment: Go to the Circulation Desk to inquire about how long most reserve items may be borrowed and write the answer here: 

InterLibrary Loan - Books and periodical articles found in the indexes and databases, which Busse Library does not own, may be requested through InterLibrary Loan at no cost to you. A complete citation is needed to make the request on a paper InterLibrary Loan form. Some periodical indexes and databases have links which allow you to make your interlibrary loan request right from the online citation.

8. Assignment: One of the ways to initiate an InterLibrary Loan request is to use the blue form found at the Reference Desk, in the Reference Area or at the Circulation Desk. Obtain one of the forms. What required information is in bold face type on the form? These are very important when requesting a photocopy of an article from another library.

__________________________   ______________________   __________________________

Section 2: Reading, Evaluating, Selecting, Citing Information

Evaluating Information Learning to evaluate all information sources and, especially, learning to read research paper is a required skills of college students. These are necessary to be able to select information and to complete assignments and write papers.

9. Assignment: Read MMC Note #B1  – Evaluating Information (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/noteb1.htm) and answer this question.  How is credibility of a publication, particularly a WWW resource determined?

10. Assignment: Read MMC Note #B3 Publication Types - Scholarly, Professional, Popular (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/noteb3.htm). Write a unique characteristic of each type here:

A. scholarly

B. professional

C. popular

Academic Honesty Academic honesty is a broad concept encompassing knowledge of copyright, plagiarism, academic cheating and intellectual integrity. It is a legal and a moral issue. Mount Mercy College expects academic honesty of all students. Ignorance of what plagiarism is or what copyright protections are is not an acceptable excuse. Plagiarism is the passing off of someone else’s work as ones own.

Copyright The MMC Note #C3  (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/notec1.htm) is a guide on copyright is written for instructors but has useful information for all users of copyrighted materials.  Almost all materials are copyrighted and must be treated and acknowledged with respect (and within legal guidelines.)  Electronic files including the World Wide Web pages are also copyrighted and must be correctly acknowledged in citations. Examples and practice assignments are in the next section of this worksheet.

11. Assignment: What are the four rights of a copyright holder listed in Note #C3?

12. Assignment: Find the statement on academic honesty or dishonesty in the Mount Mercy College Catalog (http://www.mtmercy.edu/catalog.htm or in print) and write it in the space below. Electronic copies of the MMC College Catalog, Academic Calender and Course Schedules are found on the WWW linked on most Busse Library Web pages for your convenience.

Bibliographic Citation Styles   Magazines, journals and newspapers all have writing styles which their contributors follow. College instructors also expect students to prepare their papers and cite their sources in particular styles. Citations are information used to identify and locate a written work, an image, an interview, etc. A basic citation has the author, title, publisher and date. Various citation styles include these and other identifying information in particular orders. Just as documentation and documentation style is important in programming, it is important in all writing. 

Copies of the several style manuals are on Reserve and in the Reference Area. Individual instructors may have special variations on the suggestions of the whichever style they require. For the next section you will need to use one of the citation styles commonly used in college writing.  They are APA, MLA, Chicago, ASA and CBE (Biological and Physical Sciences).  Short guides for these styles are found toward the bottom of the MMC Notebook page. Select one of the styles to use in writing the citations for Section 3.  Write the style here______________________________________.

Section 3 - Using Busse Library Information Resources

This section is a series of Assignments to give you experience using the Library Catalog, several periodical indexes and databases and the WWW to collect information on your topic. Some are practice activities for searching that type of information format and may not yield a useful item for your topic but are to give you a taste of what may be found there.

13. Assignment:   Library Catalog. 

A. Choose the Searching Busse on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen on a Reference Area computer. This is the Busse Library Catalog. Search for the following books and write their call numbers after the titles. Do a title search.

Encyclopedia of Computer Science - 

The Timetables of Technology - 

Encyclopedia of Sociology - 

B. Find a book on your topic (or generally related to it). Do a keyword search on your topic.

Select a book from your list of hits. Write down the call number. Find the book in the Busse Library stacks. Determine whether it is an authored or an edited book. Edited books often have chapters written by authors other than the editor. Write the appropriate book citation (authored or edited). You cannot always tell whether a book is edited or authored from a library catalog record but may need to find the book in the stacks. You should note that when you take notes on books which you intend to cite.

C. Use the Encyclopedia of Sociology to answer the following. What challenges are there for the application of computing to social research?

14. Assignment:  Go to Academic Search Premier from EBSCOhost on the Periodical Indexes and Other Databases (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/period.htm) page. MMC Note #A14 (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/notea14.htm) will assist you in using the EBSCOhost databases. Find a journal article on your topic.  There are two types of full text articles available from EBSCOhost: 'HTML Full Text' and 'PDF Full Text' as well as citations to articles in periodicals available in Busse Library or by InterLibrary Loan. For this assignment choose two articles: one that is 'HTML Full Text' online within the index/database and one that is 'PDF Full Text'.  If Busse Library owns the journal, there will be a note by the citation on the hits list.  

18. Assignment: Go to LexisNexix Academic on the Periodical Indexes and Other Databases (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/period.htm) page. There are many databases within LexisNexis Academic, a wide ranging set of databases including newspapers, magazines, government documents and more. This assignment is to find a newspaper article related to your topic. Note #A16 (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/notea16.htm) offers tips in using this set of databases. Click on News under LexisNexis Academic on the Periodicals and Other Databases page. On the next screen, select General News and Major Papers and Previous Two Years on the drop down menus. Enter your search terms.  You may need to select Headline and Lead Paragraphs from the search terms menu.  This is a database of major newspapers around the world.

Write the citation in appropriate format for a full text online newspaper article from a commercial database here:

20. Assignment: . WWW Search Engines  There are many search engines and directories. We recommend Google for most general academic searches. It is found on the WWW Search Tools (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/engine.htm) page on the Busse Library Web (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/bussel.htm) main page (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/bussel.htm). 

Go to the WWW Search Tools page and use Google to locate two webpages on your topic. One webpage should appear to be credible according to the guidelines in Note #B1 (http://www.mtmercy.edu/lib/noteb1.htm) which you used earlier. The other webpage should be suspect for one or more reasons based on the guidelines. Occasionally webpages are reprints of articles from databases or print sources or may be articles on a publisher's website. These usually are not found using a search engine. There are different citation styles for each of these types of webpage.  Select webpages which are not on a publisher's site and not article reprints for this exercise.

Take time to scroll down the list of search engines and directories to see the breadth of specialist as well as general engines suggested for your academic work. None of them indexes the whole web but a specialized search engine may be useful for some information.

A. Write the citation for a credible webpage in appropriate  format for a general webpage:

B: Write the citation for a suspect webpage.

 Explain why the page lacks credibility:

21. Assignment:  Busse Library Media Center. Sometimes a video or non-print media item offers information on a topic. Use the instructions below to search Horizon, the library catalog,  to see if Busse Library owns a video on your topic. If there is no video on your topic, do a search using the keyword: grammar. Videos have call numbers and are shelved by call numbers just like books.

Open Searching Busse on one of the Reference Area Computers. Click on Restrict. On the next window highlight Media Materials on the list of restrictions and click OK. You may only keyword search using this feature. Do your search(es) and select a video.

Write the citation in appropriate  format here:

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updated 24 September 2002