by Susan Magee
Daily Lobo Guest Columnist
The last few weeks of the semester are here and, for those of you who have waited to work on those paper assignments, finding the right resources quickly is going to become crucial very soon.
Googling is not the answer because your professor has said you can't use "stuff you find on the Internet."
The General Library spends around $650,000 on subscriptions to almost 200 databases and electronic journal packages. These are resources that you can't get through Google or any of the other Web search engines. They are acceptable to professors for use in research papers.
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Some of the databases are very general and can be useful to students in a wide variety of disciplines. Others are very focused in scope and primarily useful to students in a particular course of study. An alphabetic list and access to all of them is available through the Research Databases and Indexes page at http://eLibrary.unm.edu/genlibsite/articles/databasesindexes.php. Most of them are available for use from off campus with your UNM NetID.
How do you know which is the best database for your topic? The General Library has recently launched a new service called the Database Advisor that will help you figure out which of these databases to use. The Database Advisor includes a drop down box of more than 70 subjects from which to select. Selecting a topic will retrieve a short list of the most useful databases for your search.
Tips on how to proceed with your paper:
l Write out your research question in one statement. This will help clarify what it is you are looking for as well as suggest the terms to use in your research strategy. Also think about synonyms for the words you're going to use in your search.
l Use the Database Advisor to decide which database to use. Most of the databases are fairly self-explanatory in their use. All of them have online help screens if you feel you're just not getting the results you expect. They usually provide search examples and tips on how to best refine your search. A minute or two looking at these help screens can often save you hours of frustration when you just can't find anything.
l Most of the databases with full-text articles are not 100 percent full text. You may find the abstract for an article that looks perfect, but it's not full text in that database. So. . .
Do a title search on the journal title in LIBROS, the online catalog, to see if the journal is available in paper in one of the main campus libraries.
If not, or you only want the article in electronic format, do a journal title search in the Full Text Finder. The Full Text Finder will tell you if we have access to the full text of that journal in another database.
Links to the Database Advisor, the Full Text Finder and LIBROS are all under
Quicklinks on the General Library Web page at http://eLibrary.unm.edu/.
Once you've collected your resources, write your paper.
Electronic resources have a very specific citation style in most cases.
If you are having trouble getting started or have gotten stuck, remember that the reference librarians at each branch are here to help. We want to make sure you know about the resources the General Library has and how best to use them.
