Library Blog

New EBSCO Product: Academic Search Complete

We are pleased to offer a new EBSCO database, Academic Search Complete. This replaces Academic Search Premier. It contains everything that was in Academic Search, plus so much more. It is the largest academic database available, offering indexing for over 13,000 journals, and full-text for 9,000 of them, a significant increase over Academic Search Premier. The database also includes magazines, and primary sources in all subject areas. What’s more, Academic Search Complete is updated daily You can find it on the Library Home Page, under Online Resources A-Z.  

Google Scholar and Your Library

You may be aware that you are not going to find scholarly articles (what is a scholarly article?) by just searching Google alone, but many have discovered Google Scholar. So the question remains, what is Google Scholar, and is it any good?

Google Scholar is a search engine that searches for scholarly articles that are freely available online.  If, on the other hand, a journal is accessible only to paying subscribers, the full text of that article will not be available for free using Google Scholar. The abstract may be available (which is why it’s asking you to pay for it) but not the full text. In contrast, the Roosevelt University library pays for thousands of journal subscriptions (which you pay for with your tuition). You have free access to these articles only when you access and search these databases using the Roosevelt University library’s website. Many of the articles you find for a price on Google Scholar are available for free through the Roosevelt University library website! For more information about how Google Scholar works click here.


One feature Google Scholar has that could improve your searching is its ability to sync with our library. We have configured Google Scholar to pick up Roosevelt University's Library holdings, which will then allow you to read the full-text of articles that Google Scholar found which Roosevelt University subscribes to. A word of caution, though: Google Scholar is by no means searching all of RU's library's journal holdings, but rather allowing you a simplified way of accessing articles that RU owns that also come up in your Google Scholar list of search results. If you are on campus this will happen automatically. If you’re off campus, you must link to Google Scholar through the Roosevelt University Library web page (how to do this below**), you will be asked to enter your student-ID number, and this will enable you to see the full text of any articles to which we have purchased subscriptions. In the result list below, for example if you click on “Full-Text @ My Library”, you will be taken directly to the article or a page that lets you know if we have access to the article. If not you will be able to request the article via ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service.

NEW FEATURE! Now you have the ability to save the articles you find in Google Scholar to your Google account!! Details here: http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2013/11/google-scholar-library.html

** To get to Google Scholar through the library website, start at the library homepage and look for Google Scholar under Online Resources A-Z

DSM-5: Diagnosing & Classifying Mental Disorders

Psychology students and faculty will be glad to know that the library owns copies of the brand new Diagnostic & Statistical Manual , 5^th edition in both print and electronic versions.

DSM-5 is used by health professionals, social workers, and forensic and legal specialists to diagnose and classify mental disorders.  The work contains concise criteria intended to facilitate an objective assessment of symptom presentations in a variety of clinical settings.

The electronic version is available free online to the Roosevelt Community through the library’s Psychiatry Online product.  You can access it by visiting the library website’s ‘Online Resources A-Z’ drop-down menu.

Also, both the Chicago and Schaumburg campuses keep a print copy in the Reference area, under the call number:  REF. RC455.2.C4 D536 2013. 

Be sure to utilize the library’s subscriptions to PsycInfo, PsycArticles, and Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print, which provide high-quality journal articles and test product evaluations.

Also, try our Psychology Research Guide for more print & electronic resources.

Federal Research Databases Impacted by Government Shutdown

Due to the government shutdown, a number of research databases and other federally-funded resources are limiting their services or have been taken offline altogether. Below is a list of affected resources, which will we update as needed.

Please contact a librarian if you need assistance locating or accessing materials. Though we don’t know when these sites will return to full operation, we may be able to locate alternative resources.

 

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
“Due to the temporary shutdown of federal government services, this web site will not be updated or maintained until government operations are authorized to resume.” [ahrq.gov]

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
“Due to the lapse in government funding, only web sites supporting excepted functions will be updated unless otherwise funded. As a result, the information on this website may not be up to date, the transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.” [cdc.gov]
Note: it is not yet clear which are “excepted functions.”

ClinicalTrials.gov
“Due to the lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.” [clinicaltrials.gov ]

ERIC
“Due to a lapse of appropriations and the partial shutdown of the Federal Government, the systems that host eric.ed.gov have been shut down. Services will be restored as soon as a continuing resolution to provide funding has been enacted.” [http://eric.ed.gov/]
Note: This should not impact your ability to search ERIC through the EBSCO platform, but it may limit your ability to access full text of certain documents.

GPO/FDsys
"The Federal Government is shut down due to a funding lapse. Congressional materials will continue to be processed and posted to FDsys. Federal Register services will be limited to documents necessary to safeguard human life, protect property, or provide other emergency services consistent with the performance of functions and services exempted under the Antideficiency Act. The remaining collections on FDsys are not being updated and will resume after funding is restored.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause." [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/]

Grants.gov
“The Department of Health and Human Services anticipates that the Grants.gov system will remain in an operational status, but with reduced federal support staff presence, should a lapse in appropriations occur. In addition, we anticipate that the Grants.gov Contact Center will remain available, and provide assistance to callers. HHS, as Managing Partner, in collaboration with OMB and the Grants.gov Program Management Office, will keep the federal grantor community updated as to the status of the Grants.gov system as plans evolve in the event of a government shutdown.” [grants.gov]

NCBI – including databases such as Gene, SNP, and BLAST
“Due to the lapse in government funding, the information on this web site may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the web site may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.” [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

NIST – including most affiliated websites
"Due to a lapse in government funding, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is closed and most NIST and affiliated web sites are unavailable until further notice. We sincerely regret the inconvenience.

The National Vulnerability Database and the NIST Internet Time Service web sites will continue to be available. A limited number of other web sites may also be available.

Notice will be posted here (www.nist.gov) once operations resume. You may also get updates on NIST's operating status by calling (301) 975-8000.

Conferences and other events scheduled during the shutdown are postponed or cancelled. Even after NIST reopens, some NIST events may need to be rescheduled. Once access to NIST Web sites resumes, please see the Conferences and Events (http://www.nist.gov/allevents.cfm) list for updated information on specific events."[http://www.nist.gov/]

PubMed.gov
“PubMed has been designated to be maintained with minimal staff during the lapse in government funding. The information on this website will be kept as up to date as possible, and the agency will attempt to respond to urgent operational inquiries during this period.” [pubmed.gov]
Note: We are unsure at this time about the parameters of “as up to date as possible.” It’s possible that new or certain sets of citations will not be added to PubMed or indexed; we are attempting to learn more.

PubMed Central
“Due to the lapse in government funding, the information on this web site may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the web site may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.” [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc]

U.S. Census Bureau
“Due to the lapse in government funding, census.gov sites, services, and all online survey collection requests will be unavailable until further notice.

Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at <usa.gov>.

Websites affected by this shutdown are all census.gov hosted websites, including:

• Census.gov
• American Factfinder
• Public API
• FTP Servers
• FAQs
• Blogs
• Online Surveys
• ·         Federal Statistical Organization websites: FCSM, FedStats and MapStats” [http://outage.census.gov/closed.html]

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)
“Due to the temporary shutdown of federal government services, this web site will not be updated or maintained until government operations are authorized to resume.” [uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org]

Thanks to the Eskind Biomedical Library at Vanderbilt University for compiling many of these statements.

Featured Resources in Sustainability: Sustainability Databases

Sustainability Studies is an interdisciplinary program, that has an environmental focus.  The library provides resources to all members of the Roosevelt community to support all aspects of Sustainability Studies.  Two resources that Sustainability Studies majors, and those taking Sustainability classes, may find useful include GREENR and GreenFile. 

 

GREENR (Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources) offers up to date information on environmental issues, sustainability, and agriculture;  GREENR is a also a great database to consult when you need primary resources or case studies on these issues.  Video reports and podcasts are also available through GREENR. 

GreenFile, an EBSCO database is "a collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles including all aspects of human impact to the environment such as global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, etc."

Sustainability Studies students may also find useful research in EconLit, Biological Abstracts, and our full list of online databases. 

 

Featured Resources in African American Studies: Voyages

Are you looking for primary sources in African American Studies?  Take a look at Voyages, a Trans-Atlantic Slaving Voyage database.  According to the site, "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. The Voyages website itself is the product of two years of development by a multi-disciplinary team of historians, librarians, curriculum specialists, cartographers, computer programmers, and web designers, in consultation with scholars of the slave trade from universities in Europe, Africa, South America, and North America."

You can search for specific voyages, voyages sailed under certain country flags, vessel name and much more.  The database includes images, essays and maps, as well as very useful lesson plans for ideas on how to incorporate the database in to an educational program. 

Visit Voyages by clicking HERE.

 

EBSCO Goes Mobile

Did you know that you can search some library databases straight from your phone?!  Follow these steps to browse your scholarly materials straight from your wireless device:

1. Log into EBSCOhost.
2. Click the EBSCOhost iPhone and Android Applications link at the bottom of the page and enter your email address. 
   An email with an authentication key is sent to you.
3. Access the email from your device and click the link found in the email to authenticate the application.
   You have 24 hours to access the key from your device to authenticate the app. If the key is not used within 24 hours, it expires and you will need a new key.

 
There is also and EBSCOhost app for your iPhone, iPad or Android.

To read more, visit the EBSCOhost web page:  http://www.ebscohost.com/schools/mobile-access

Featured Resources in Theater: Databases

Naxos Music Library

"Listen over the web to the complete recordings found in the Naxos catalog. The catalog includes all recordings by Marco Polo, Dacapo, and First Edition. Naxos is the leader in the classical recording industry."

Oxford Music Online

Access to articles, biographies, bibliographies, 20th century composers and performers, world music, jazz, opera, rock, popular music, instruments and their history.  *Please note, this resource has limited concurrent user access. Be sure to log off when finished your searching so that other authorized users can access it. If unable to connect, please try again at a later time.

DRAM

Listen to streaming audio on your computer of important American music. DRAM contains folk, opera, Native American, jazz, 19th century classical, early rock, musical theater, contemporary, electronic and beyond.

Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities

Faculty: Browse Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities

RU faculty interested in learning about the submission criteria for quality journals in their scholarly discipline may search in the electronic Cabell’s Directories of Publishing Opportunities database.  These directories feature the following academic categories:  Accounting, Economics & Finance, Management, Marketing, Educational Curriculum & Methods, Educational Psychology & Administration, Educational Technology & Library Science, and Psychology & Psychiatry.

 

To search, just go to the library homepage, and click the ‘Faculty Resources’ link under ‘Library Services’.  Click on the ‘Publishing’ tab, then click on the ‘Cabell’s Publishing Directories’ link.  This will bring you to the webpage for the RU Library’s Cabell’s subscription.  You will see links for the various different Directories.  Select one, using its corresponding radio button, and click the ‘Access, Selected Directory’ button.

You will now see a Directory Search page, where you can choose a specific topic using a drop-down menu.  Scroll through the list until you’ve identified the name of the journal that you’d like to see more information about, and click on “Review” to the left of the title.  A 3- to 4- page PDF document will be displayed.  Information provided is pretty straightforward – a first page shows a table summarizing the journal’s submission process, followed by a set of manuscript guidelines regarding audience, style, article preparation, etc.As a case in point, use the ‘Education Curriculum & Methods’ directory.  Choose the ‘Specific Topic’ of “Foreign Language”.  Now click on ‘Review’ for the “Journal of Second Language Writing”.  Scrolling down, we see a 10% acceptance rate, a 26-30 page manuscript length, and a ‘Submission of Articles’ section.

 

 

What ELSE can Credo Reference do?

As you may have read in an earlier Ms. Information post HERE, Credo Reference is a great resource for finding background information on your topic.  We like to think of it as a reliable alternative to Wikipedia, because the entries are written by experts in the field.  But did you know that Credo can do a lot more than that, including helping you find images to enhance your research, and also help you narrow down your topic?

You can type in the keyword of your topic in the "Search for" box, or click on the "Image Search" tab to search for images, maps and graphs related to your topic.  Credo Reference also offers the "Concept Map."  With this feature, you can type in your keyword, and it will show you results of entries and pieces of information that are related to your topic.  This can help you start thinking about your topic in new ways.

Credo Reference contains almost 500 reference book, with over 3 million full text entries.  Reference books include encyclopedias, biographies and dictionaries on topics ranging from a history of martial arts to a dictionary of child development, and many topics in between. 

You can access Credo Reference from the Library home page by using the drop down menu under Online Resources A-Z.  Happy searching!

Image courtesy of Credo Reference.  Database accessible to members of the Roosevelt community with a valid student id number.

New Library Database: Global Issues in Context

Are you researching a current, “hot” topic? Need to find out what is newsworthy in countries around the globe? Try the Library’s newest interdisciplinary database, Global Issues in Context.

You can access this database from the Library's homepage by clicking on "Online Resources A-Z", clicking on "G", and scrolling to find this title. You can even use it off campus--just log in with your Library borrower ID.

This database explores broad current events and controversial topics from a global perspective. Information is arranged in topical “portals.” These portals provide a wide range of materials, including a brief overview of the topic, reference sources for background information, global news articles, images and videos, podcasts, primary source documents, scholarly journal articles, and more. All materials are full text and link to other related portals within the database.

Use the search box near the top of the page to look for materials, or browse portals by issue or geographic region.

For help using this or any other resource, email us or contact an RU Library location for assistance.

 

Sage eJournals Are Here @ your Library®

Sage Publications, Inc. is an entrepreneurial publishing company that is leading the charge for distributing electronic journals and reference books of professional quality.  The RU Library subscribes to both of these two services on behalf of its students, faculty, and staff.  Sage eReference was discussed in a blog post on “EBooks @ your library®” 

Sage Journals Online is a relatively ‘unsung’ article database service that is similar in content to such mainstream search products as EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier, Wilson OmniFile Select and Project Muse.  Sage Journals Online currently searches in 485 journal titles:  ASP includes 4,500; Wilson has 1,600; and Muse features 270.

To search in Sage Journals Online, look in the upper right corner and type in your topic in the “Quick Search” box.  Or, if you’d like to make a more nuanced search, click on the ‘Advanced Search’ tab.  This leads to a simple search mechanism where all you do is enter a few words or phrases – say “social justice” and “libraries”.  Then, click the “Search” button (not the “Clear All Fields” icon).  The top ten hits will be listed.

Say you’d like to get into the article on “Social Justice Educational Leaders and Resistance: Toward a Theory of Social Justice Leadership” by George Theoharis.  Just click the ‘Full Text (PDF)’ link, and then ‘Begin Manual Download’ in the upper left corner.  You can now browse, print, or save the article as a PDF document.

Now, say you have enjoyed browsing in, printed, or have saved this article and are ready to mine its bibliography.  Click back until you get to the results list, then click on the ‘References’ link.  This gives you the bibliography with links to, in this case, three articles in Sage Journals Online which list ‘Abstract/Free Full Text’.  

So, when you’re browsing around in EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier, Wilson OmniFile Select, or Project Muse, please do give Sage Journals Online a try as well!

Spotlight on Databases: Black Thought and Culture

 

Produced in collaboration with the University of Chicago, Black Thought and Culture contains 1,297 sources with 1,100 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African-Americans. Contributors are drawn from all areas of life, including teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes and entertainers. Documents include many primary sources, such as interviews, speeches, pamphlets and letters. When completed, the collection will include the first-ever complete run of the Black Panther newspaper. There are approximately 5,000 pages of previously inaccessible documents.

Black Thought and Culture is quite user-friendly, as it is searchable by author, source, year, historical event, personal event, questions and subjects. You can access this database through the RU Library Home Page, under "Books" and "Online Reference Sources."

   

The RU Library has E-Books!

The Roosevelt University Library has many books...some old, some new, and some electronic!  When you search the RU Catalog for books, you might notice some books are listed as an Internet Resource.  Those are e-books that can be read wholly online. 

The library has a collection of nearly 2000 e-books that can be accessed by creating a free account at http://www.netlibrary.com.  The only catch is that one must be on-campus to create the account, but then you’ll be able to access the account from home or anywhere else off campus.  If you are on one of the university's computers, simply click the link that says Create a Free Account on the top right hand corner of NetLibrary and create an account; once you've done that, you can use the account to read any of Roosevelt's e-books wherever you have access to a computer and the internet.  If you can't come on campus to create the account, call either the Auditorium or the Schaumburg campus library, and we will create an account for you over the phone.

Value Line Investment Survey – Stock Evaluation Info

Have you heard that the library’s subscription to Value Line Investment Survey, a premiere stock evaluation service, is now available from off-campus?

 

Yes! You can log in from the library, computer lab, or at home and search to your heart’s content. How to do it? Just follow these easy steps:

 

Go to the library website, www.roosevelt.edu/library . Click on “Online Resources A-Z”. Choose “V”, then click on Value Line Investment Survey. 

 

Now, at left is a list of choices: choose “Lookup Industry” or “Lookup Company”. In the search box, type in either an industry or company name. The industry search page lists the 99 industries tracked by Value Line – it may be just as quick if you scroll down through the list. The company search page lets you do a search by company name or by  ticker. In either case, just click on the PDF icon to bring up the Value Line report. It’s a one-page executive summary giving the current outlook for the company or industry.

 

Value Line not only helps you in determining what stocks to buy for your investment or retirement portfolio, it can also help in doing research on a company or industry for your business classes. Mergent Online is also a good choice for business company research.

Let the Articles Come to You

Do you ever wish you could sit back and have articles from journals and magazines be brought to you, rather than having to go and find them by yourself?  Well, this installment of Database Tips will help you realize at least part of that dream. 

A new feature in EBSCOHost Databases, which include databases such as Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, ERIC, and PsycINFO, as well as in Academic One File, will deliver articles based on the search criteria you choose.  All you have to do is search for articles in one of those databases, and the database will give you a link that you can use to subscribe to the search.

How it works is this: the database creates an RSS feed based on the search criteria that you use to find articles.  You might know about RSS feeds if you are a blog reader or writer.  In the simplest of terms, an RSS feed takes new content from a blog, or any website that is regularly updated and has a feed, and directs it somewhere else, like a feed reader, blog aggregator, or favorites bar in a browser, making it easy for you to keep track of your favorite blogs, newspapers, websites, and now, article searches!

So, the next time you set up a successful search in an EBSCOHost database or Academic One File, look for a link at the top of your list of results.  In EBSCO databases, the link will say Create alert for this search, and in Academic One File it will say Create a Search Alert. In both cases, the links will appear next to the orange RSS feed icon, which you can see to the above right.  After clicking either link, you will get the URL for the feed, which you can use to subscribe to the search.

Still confused?  RSS, despite being called "real simple syndication," tends to be a subject that makes even the most tech savvy people scratch their heads and mutter.  Well, mutter no more: we've created a primer on blogs and feeds--what they are, and how you can use them.  You can read them here:

• Intro to Blogs and Feeds Part 1
• Intro to Blogs and Feeds Part 2

As always, if you have questions or need further assistance, contact us!

 

Before there were databases, there were indexes...

For this installment of Database Tips, we'll be going back to a time well before databases, before computers, before the Auditorium Building was even built.

Before we used databases to index and collect articles from journals, magazines and newspapers, these kinds of materials were thoroughly indexed in printed indexes.  These indexes kept track of what was published in numerous periodicals by sorting citations by major subjects, authors, and people, much like an index one would find at the end of a book, only in these books, the entire book is an index, and rather than pointing the reader to another page in the book, they point one to an article in a periodical.

The disadvantage of these print indexes compared to their database offspring is rather obvious: the databases are able to provide quick access to the actual articles they index.  The advantage of print indexes are that they often go back farther than even the most comprehensive databases, in some cases back to the 19th century.  Some purists might even say that they are easier to use in that they provide a single source for citations, and citations for numerous articles are easily found and listed under definitive subject headings.

The most well-known of these print indexes is

A Code for Finding Journal Articles

One of the most frustrating aspects of searching for articles in a database is not knowing which keywords to use to find information.  This can especially be hard when researching a type of business or an industry. The business type you are researching can seem so specific that it gets frustrating weeding through irrelevant articles, or it can be so obscure that you find little or no articles. Well, here's a tip that will help you find journal articles about businesses and industries, no matter how specific or obscure: find out how the government classifies your business or industry. 

How do you do that?  The government uses a system called NAICS (pronounced "nakes"), which stands for North American Industry Classification System.  It was developed along with the governments of Canada and Mexico as a way to classify businesses in order to collect statistical data about the business economies of those nations.  Industries are given a code, usually 6 digits long, which identifies their primary type of business. 

In library article databases provided by EBSCO, including Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier, you have the ability to search for articles using a NAICS code, because articles in these databases are indexed with the NAICS codes that are relevant to that article.  So if you find the NAICS code for the industry you are researching, you can enter that code in those databases and get of set of articles that are indexed with that code. 

Finding the correct NAICS code can be a little tricky.  There is a NAICS website which includes a code search (http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html).  The search is very strict, so it is best to search using a single keyword here; for instance, rather than searching "floral arrangements" search "floral," "flower," or "florist."  What may work a little better is to go to Google and search "NAICS" along with the industry you are looking for.  For instance, if you go to the NAICS site and search "event planning" you won't get results, but if you Google "NAICS event planning," the first result you get is an announcement from the Census bureau explaining that NAICS code 561920 covers the activities done on a daily basis by event planners.

With that code in hand, you can now go to Academic Search Premier or Business Source Premier and find articles indexed with this code.  In one of the keyword boxes type IC along with your NAICS code in quotes (for example: IC "561920").  Click the Search button, and you will get a list of articles indexed with that code.  Since NAICS codes often cover a number of different industries, you may want to narrow the results down by entering in keywords in the additional keyword boxes. 

If you need additional assistance with NAICS, or with researching businesses and industries, contact a reference librarian at our Downtown, Schaumburg, or CPA library.

"I have to do a paper on a controversial issue, where do I start?"

Students often come in to the library to begin their research and don't know where to begin. Recently, we've had a large number of students who have been charged with writing a paper about a controversial issue, also known as a persuasion paper, or an argumentative paper.  Are you one of these students and a topic hasn't jumped out at you just yet? Or maybe you have some ideas but you don't know if they'll work.

If that's the case, I suggest you go to the database called Facts on File - Issues and Controversies.  To get here, start at the library homepage, then click on 'online resources a-z', choose 'f' to jump down, and then scroll down to get to the right database (if you're off-campus you'll need to enter your student ID in order to gain access).  If you're just trolling for ideas, look at the right-hand column where there is a list of "Issues in the Headlines".  The day I checked it, I found issues like conflict diamonds, the local food movement, and school uniforms.

If you have a few ideas of what you might like to research, but you're not sure if you're topic will work, type it in the search box and look at the results list.  Simple type the main keyword (not a whole question - read more about that here).  For example, you might type in gun control, same-sex marriage, or abortion.  You'll then see a list of results, choose the one that sounds the best and look around on that page. You'll find what supporters of the argument say, what critics of the argument say, the history of the particular issue and a bibliography which will help you figure out where to go for more information. This content is why it's such a good place to start; you're provided with a well-rounded summary of the topic from an objective point of view.

good luck, researching!

Do you have a question for Ms. Information? Ms. Information welcomes your questions about research, libraries, and how to find all kinds of information.  Submit your question to mhaller [at] roosevelt [dot] edu.

Keep it Simple, Searcher

Does anyone remember Jeeves?*  He was the jolly butler character that used to greet searchers at the Ask Jeeves search engine.  The trick was that you could type an actual question into the search box, and Jeeves would present his answers on a silver (albeit virtual) platter. Google came along, became a verb, and stole much of Jeeves's market share, and eventually his website got rid of him altogether, excising their name to the less personal Ask.com.  Jeeves's legacy is what librarian- and programmer-types call the natural language query: a query in the form of a typical, conversational question, such as "what are the consequences of globalization?"  By the magic of the internet, search engines like Ask**, Google, and Yahoo! are be able to understand such a question and offer back a list of results.

If you've become accustomed to doing natural language searches (even if you didn't know you were doing such a thing), you might have experienced some disappointment when trying to do a similar kind of search in the kinds of search engines one can access at libraries, though in libraries, they are called databases rather than search engines.  If you were to search "What are the consequences of globalization" in Google, you will get over 2,300,000 results.***  If you were to search the same question the same way in Academic Search Premier, one of the Roosevelt University Library's most-used databases, you will get the following message, in red letters: "No results were found."

The reason that query won't work in Academic Search Premier is because that database tries to find an exact match for what you enter in the keyword box.  What natural language search engines do are strip away irrelevant terms such as what, are, and the, and search only the most relevant terms, in this case, "consequences" and "globalization". This phenomenon leads us to the true lesson of this post, one that will lead to successful searches in library databases, and even search engines like Google:

KEEP IT SIMPLE, SEARCHER!

Databases like Academic Search Premier work best when searching simple keywords and phrases.  For example, if we drop "what are the" from our original search and search "consequences of globalization" in that database, you will get 95 results.  The reason we get results this time is because the database searched the information attached to the articles it indexes--in this case, the title of the articles, the subjects attached to them, and the abstracts or summaries given for the articles--and was able to match the exact phrase "consequences of globalization" in 95 different articles.  If we place "globalization" in one keyword box and "consequences" in another keyword box, we get 599 articles, which is a lot, but still nowhere near the 2.5 million at Google.

As you can see, the simpler your search, the higher your number of results, though you lose a bit of relevance when your results reach the hundreds.  To make your searching even more effective, pay attention to the kinds of results you get from your search.  Watch the subject headings that are attached to the most relevant results, and replace broad terms such as "consequences" with more specific keywords.  For example, when looking at the list of 599 results from the last search, you would notice that Academic Search Premier lists "social aspects" as a subject heading.  If you replace "consequences" with "Social aspects," you get 388 articles.  If you replace "Social aspects" with "Economic aspects", you get 408 articles.  In this database, you can click a link at the top of your list of results that says "Academic Journals," and that will narrow the list down to only articles from scholarly, peer reviewed journals--the kind of high-quality information that often cannot be found for free on Google. 

Natural language continues to be the "killer app" of search engine and database searching. Lexis Nexis Academic even went so far as to make natural language searching its default search option when it changed to its new interface, but decided to switch back to a simple term search due to problems with natural language searching.  Hype is brewing among programmer and librarian-types about a natural language search engine called Powerset, which no one really knows much about at the moment; in fact, it can't even be used yet.

In the meantime, remember the lesson of this post: Keep it Simple, Searcher.  Until natural language becomes all it's hyped-up to be, using combinations of simple keywords will make sure your search is a successful one, no matter if you're searching the library's databases or Google.

* If you're curious what really happened to Jeeves, find out here.  If you're curious where Jeeves came from in the first place, check this out.

** Those aforementioned librarian-types will be quick to tell you that Ask Jeeves was never truly a natural language search engine; enquiring librarian-types can learn more here.

*** The discussion of whether any of those results could be considered useful for research will have to wait for another day.