You have your citations, now what to do with them!

If you’re having trouble organizing your research, there is help! There are several bibliographic management programs that can help you organize and format your citations.

Two FREE programs that are popular among some students.

• Zotero (http://www.zotero.org) is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.
• Connotea (http://www.connotea.org) is a free online reference management for clinicians and scientists that doesn’t require any downloading.

Two programs that are available for a fee are:

• EndNote ( http://www.endnote.com) is used to organize references, images and PDFs in any language, as well as create bibliographies and figure lists instantly.
• RefWorks (http://www.refworks.com) is the second bibliographic management tool that can be purchased. RefWorks is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.

Depending on your needs, review and evaluate these tools and choose the one that’s best for you!!

** Please note that because of the Walden Library security, our databases cannot be searched from within these programs.

And don’t forget to contact the Walden Writing Center for any additional assistance with citations and formatting! They can be reached at writingsupport@waldenu.edu.

Document Delivery 101

Lets’ say you’re researching a topic for a class or a project. You’ve been using a variety of databases and search engines, and you think you’ve found a great article citation that speaks directly to your topic. You check the Walden Library, and we don’t own the full text. This might be a good opportunity to try out Walden’s Document Delivery Service!

The Document Delivery Service (DDS) creates partnerships with other academic libraries to obtain articles not owned at Walden and delivers them electronically to you for free. Currently, we have borrowing agreements with the University of Michigan, Indiana University, and the University of Minnesota Biomedical Library.

So when is a good time to use DDS?

Do use DDS when:

• You need a specific article for your research.
• You are working on a literature review for a dissertation.
• You need supporting materials for a final paper or project.
• You want a specific chapter of a book copied.

Don’t use DDS when:

• You are in a hurry or you need a weekly reading. DDS takes 7 to 10 business days to fill a request. No rush requests.
• You don’t have a complete or reliable citation, check with our reference staff first. The more information we get, the faster your request can be filled.
• You want to browse a wide range of articles to narrow a topic. DDS is a costly and inefficient way to conduct the beginning stages of a research project.
• You are looking for a required course reading or an article owned in the Walden databases. We can’t fill those.
• You need to borrow a book or need multiple chapters copied. We no longer ship hard copies.
• In any of these “Don’t” cases, contact the Library reference department directly at 1-800-930-0914 or through our “Ask a Librarian” link.

For more information, click on the “Document Delivery” link under Library Services.

Finding Resources in WorldCat

Although the Walden Library has an extensive collection of journal articles and e-books, we do not have access to every item. If you need something that is not available through the library or the Document Delivery Service, you may want to check libraries in your area for it. The easiest way to see if a library in your area has a particular resource is to use WorldCat. WorldCat is a free online mega-catalog that searches the catalogs of most libraries in the United States and some overseas.

Here is how to find resources using WorldCat:

 

Go to: http://www.worldcat.org

Type the title of the resource into the blue box and click “Search Everything”. If you are looking for a journal article, type in the title of the journal instead of the title of the article.

This should bring up a list of results. Look through the list to find your resource. Once you have found it, click on the title of the resource.

This will bring you to a page with information about your resource. Type in your zip code into the “Enter Location Information” box at the bottom of the page.

Now you have a list of libraries in your area that have the item listed in their catalogs. Click on the name of the library for more information about the item.

 

The Walden Library can help you look up borrowing information for these libraries and we can also help you find resources. Please don’t hesitate to contact us via phone or over email if you have any questions.

The Walden Library is now in Google Scholar!

Google Scholar fans (http://scholar.google.com) will be happy to note that Google Scholar now links to  Walden Library full-text journals.  Here’s how to set your preferences:

1. Click on “Scholar Preferences”

2. Under Library links, enter Walden University into the search box and click on the “Find Library” button

3. Check the box next to “Walden University – Full Text@Walden Library”

4. Click on “Save Preferences”

Now you’re ready to search.

You can add the word “Walden” to any search you do in Google Scholar and you will see many articles with the words “Full-Text @Walden Library” next to the title.

Click on “Full-Text @Walden Library” and you will be taken to a page that will ask for your MyWalden login and password.

Enter those in the appropriate boxes and click on the “Submit” button. You will then be taken to the full-text of the article (note, this may be a pdf that requires Adobe Acrobat).

Caveat Emptor: This is not a 100% surefire way to find articles in the Walden Library. This is merely a convenience for our students who use Google Scholar.  To be absolutely certain you are finding everything in the Walden Library, we suggest you contact one of our reference librarians for help. Use Ask a Librarian in the navigation bar on the right!

Proquest database maintenance

From our database provider:

Dear ProQuest Customer,

The next ProQuest® platform maintenance window will be on April 18, 2009. An eight (8) hour maintenance window will take place for infrastructure maintenance. The window will take place from Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 22:00 Eastern Standard Time to Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 6:00 Eastern Standard Time.

What is Walden 360 Link?

You may have noticed buttons for a service called “Walden 360 Link” in the results lists in our various library databases. The links look a little different in every database; you may have seen:

• “Check Walden 360 Link for full text”
• “Walden 360 Link”
• “360 Link to Full Text”

All of these buttons link to the same tool. This tool does one simple thing: it takes the information about the article you are viewing in the search results and it will quickly check all of the other Walden Library databases to see if the article is in full text elsewhere.

Why is this useful? Well, it often happens that some search results in one database are abstract only, where the full-text of the article may actually be available in another database. However, databases do not generally share this sort of information with each other – so without the 360 link tool you would have had to spend a lot of your time re-running your search in all of the other Walden databases to make sure you didn’t miss the article. Now, you can cut that down to one click of a button!

If you’d like to see how this works, here is a sample search to try:

1. Go to the library’s PsycINFO database (note: you will be prompted to log in! Use your myWalden portal username and password)
2. Paste the following in to the search box:
   How to Transform into Goddesses and Elephants Exploring the Potentiality of the Dialogical Self
3. The first result in your search list will be an article with this as the title. Note that the article is not available in full text here in PsycINFO. So click the “Check Walden 360 Link for Full Text” button that appears just under the article.
4. A new window will open and after a moment you will see the full text article load…from our Sage databases!

Now, sometimes you will use 360 Link and you will see a screen that looks like this:

You didn’t do anything wrong! The 360 Link can only check if we have the full text elsewhere – the link is not a guarantee that we do have it. When the library really doesn’t have the article you will see the image above.

(If you get to the screen above and feel stuck for resources, that’s a great time to ask your librarians for more help!)

So that’s our 360 Link tool. It’s a simple little application to help make sure you don’t miss great full text content in our library.

Think Tanks

Think Tanks

The term “think tanks” is a vague phrase used to describe a wide range of non-profit research organizations (centers, institutions, foundations) which engage in public policy analysis and research, and often promote solutions and recommendation for specific issue. Some are nonpartisan, researching policy while others provide intellectual support to politicians or parties.

There are hundreds of such think tanks in the United States and around the world. The Walden Library has a subscription to PolicyFile database which offers access to U.S. foreign and domestic policy papers and gray literature.  PolicyFile is updated weekly with abstracts and links to the latest reports, papers, and documents from think tanks, research institutes, and agencies. Visit our Research Databases page and scroll down to find the link for PolicyFile.

Library Sessions at the Atlanta Residency

Come check out what the libray has to offer at the Atlanta Residency!

PhD:

Wednesday, April 15:
2-4pm:               Drop-in Advising

Thursday, April 16:
1-5pm:                 Drop-in Advising
1-2:30pm:          Introduction to the Walden Library
2:45-4:15pm:    Library Lab
4:30-6pm:          CyberToolkit
4:30-6pm:          KAM Research Tips: Using the Library to Find Sources for the Breadth and Depth

Friday, April 17:
1-2:30pm:          Library Lab
3pm-4pm:          Hot Topics at the Library: Public Policy and Administration Research Online
4:30-5:30pm:   Hot Topics at the Library: Psychology Sources BeyondPsycINFO

Saturday, April 18
3-4:30pm:          Library Tips for the Literature Review
4:30-6pm:          Introduction to the Walden Library

EdD Sessions:

Friday, April 17:
8:15-9:45am:     Library Lab
10-11:30am:      Library Lab
1-2:30pm:           Library Lab
3-4:30pm:           Library Lab

Saturday, April 18
8:15-9:45am:      Education Research Online for Administrator Leaders
10-11:30am:        Education Research Online for Leadership and Adult Education
1-2:30pm:             CyberToolkit
3:30-5pm:             Library Tips for the Literature Review

Chat Trial Now Available!

The Walden Library Chat trial has begun!  You can chat online with a Walden librarian for the next week.  Look for the live chat button on the Walden Library website.

The chat hours are:

Saturday and Sunday, April 4 and 5: 2-8pm EDT

Monday through Friday, April 6-10: 6-10pm EDT

Saturday and Sunday, April 11 and 12: 2-8pm EDT

 

We look forward to “seeing” you online!

Database BASICS: Keyword Searching

So, you have a research question.  You logon to the Walden Library Homepage and navigate to the Research Databases.  You choose a database…and then it happens:

You stare at the database search screen, unsure of what to do next.  “Database brain freeze” has hit you!

We Walden librarians talk to students every day who fall prey to this common affliction.  That blinking cursor in a search box can make even the most intelligent brain seize up.  Many students come to us not sure how to get started searching for their topic.  That’s why we’re here!

Here are some tips and tricks to try when you experience “database brain freeze”.
In these tips, I’ll use an example topic to make the tricks concrete.

Example topic:  I’m researching the effects of yoga on blood pressure.

TIPS and TRICKS!

1)  It helps to be able to brainstorm some words about your topic first. I might have this list of KEYwords for my topic:

Yoga                Blood pressure
Stretching
Alternative therapies
Exercise
Meditation

Notice how I came up with words that were CLOSE to yoga, but not QUITE the SAME.  “Alternative therapies” is an idea that would encompass yoga.  Yoga is a kind of “exercise”.  Some practitioners of yoga incorporate “meditation”.  Even if I don’t think I really want information about ANY exercise and its effects on blood pressure, that’s okay.  I’m JUST BRAINSTORMING.

2)  It helps to understand how databases work.

I tell students all the time that the database is not as smart as Google.  If I type “blod pressure” into Google, it will correct me.  Google will ask “Did you mean BLOOD PRESSURE?”  And I will say, “Yes, thank you.”

The database is unforgiving.  Think of the database like a strict parent: you’re not getting any results until you spell everything correctly and say “please”.
So we need to be careful when we “talk to” the database.  We also need to speak SIMPLY.

What do I mean by “speak SIMPLY”?  Well, I can’t go into a database and type this:

Yoga and its effects on blood pressure

I will get NO results.  Zip. Nada.

Why?

Databases can’t understand phrases like that!  Again, Google can understand that.  I go to Google with “yoga and its effects on blood pressure” and I’ll get millions of results.

Although, some of what I find in Google could have been written by a 15 year old.

I want to get at the good SCHOLARLY research in the databases then, not rely on Google.

So, how do I speak SIMPLY to the database?

3)  Understand how to speak SIMPLY to the database.

I like to tell students to speak to the database as if you were a stereotypical caveman or cavewoman.

Don’t use prepositions.  Don’t use full sentences.  Just use your…

KEYwords!

This is why we brainstormed in #1.

I would tell the database that my main KEYwords for my topic are:

Yoga and blood pressure

Concept #1: Yoga
Concept #2: Blood pressure

Two concepts= put the word AND in between them.

Simple, no?

4)  Understand how to make your search BIGGER and smaller.

Maybe I don’t get many results with my search.  Maybe I get too many.

What do I do?

I can add more KEYwords to my search.

How?

I could add some more words that mean the SAME thing.  Again, with the brainstorming in #1, remember?

I might say, “Gee, database, I don’t really care if the articles I find are about Yoga and blood pressure OR if they are about Meditation and blood pressure.  I’m interested in BOTH!”

How would I tell the database this?

Most databases give you more than one Search box to type your words into.

I would do this in the first box:

Yoga or meditation

In the second box, I would do this:

Blood pressure

That would be my search.  See, I’m keeping ONE concept per box.  Meditation and Yoga can substitute for each other; to me they are like the SAME concept.  So they go in a box together with OR in between.  I will take either yoga OR meditation!

Blood pressure goes in its own box, because it is my second concept.

This will make my search BIGGER.  I am searching for MORE things because I used OR.

If I were to add in a NEW concept, it would make my search smaller.  Let’s say I really just want to focus on men who are using yoga or meditation and its effect on their blood pressure.

I would add the NEW concept of “men” into the third Search box.  My search would look like this:

First box:

Yoga or meditation

Second box:

Blood pressure

Third box:

Men

I’m going to leave it here for BASIC database searching.  There are all kinds of more advanced searching tricks and tips for us to share later.

The BEST tip to remember: when you’re unsure what to do or can’t recover from “database brain freeze”- Ask a Librarian!

Happy Searching!