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This guide is designed to help you with your third assignment: 'Information Bank'. It builds on InfoTrekk, which is a brief, general introduction to finding information and referencing. If you haven't used InfoTrekk yet click on the link above to view it.
Your assignment requires you to build an 'information bank' of 20 references to sources of information. You must include at least one reference from each of the following types of sources listed below. Click on the links to see a guide on how you can search for these:
Monographs (books)
Chapters in edited collections
Reference works: encyclopaedias, bibliographies etc
Government reports
Conference proceedings
Audio-Visual material
Print and electronic journals
Newspaper articles or magazines
Internet news or commentary source
Internet published paper
World Wide Web sites
Email discussion lists
Help!
Important: ensure you read your unit guide for specific instructions in relation to this assignment, in particular how to present your references and how to obtain help. This webpage is a guide only to assist you in obtaining your sources of information.
Books are the more traditional library-based resources which you may be more familiar with. These can provide information about particular aspects of your subject. To find a book on your subject, search the Curtin Library Catalogue using a keyword search. Ensure you are searching the 'Total Catalogue' (your screen should be blue) which means you will be searching all items the library holds. When entering your keywords keep it simple, so use two or three terms for your subject. For example:
Russian revolution
India caste system
World heritage
If you do not find a book about your subject, try using broader keywords to describe your subject. You will need to think about the broader concepts your subject falls into.
Once you have found an item which looks relevant to your subject you will need to make a note of its location (i.e.: the library the item is held at and the floor level) and whether the item is out on loan or available. Look in the 'due date' column of the holdings screen. If it says 'Check Shelf' this means the item is available for you to retrieve from the shelf. If it displays a date this means the item is out on loan. You can obtain the item by clicking on the 'recall' link and entering your Curtin ID and Password.
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Sometimes a book is put together by combining a number of pieces of work written by different authors. Each work will become a chapter of the book and an editor will be used to put the book together and usually writes a foreword and/or introduction.
To find a chapter in an edited book you will need to search the Curtin Library Catalogue in the same way you did to find a book and select any items from the results list which display 'edited by….' after the title of the item. This indicates that the book has an editor. Here is an example of this display:
You will then need to retrieve this book from the library shelves (remember to write down the shelf number and location before you go) and select a chapter within it which is relevant to your subject.
Encyclopaedias and reference works can give you basic background information on a subject. They can include definitions, statistics, overviews and further references. It is always recommended to check how current the information is in an encyclopaedia or reference work by checking the publication year. You will find this printed within the first couple of pages at the front of the book.
Some useful titles are:
Oxford Reference Online (Core Collection)
This online reference work provides access to over 100 dictionaries and subject specialised reference items. Curtin students must login with their Curtin ID and Password.
Europa World Year Book. Level 2 R900 37936
This reference volume is in Robertson Library’s Reference Collection on Level 3. It is a quality, up-to-date source of information, with statistics. You can’t borrow Reference items but you can photocopy the information.
The World Fact Book
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
This online title has background information and a range of statistics. It is freely available on the Internet and is kept current.
Legal Systems of the World (online)
You will find this online book by searching the Curtin Library Catalogue by its title. Curtin students must login with their Curtin ID and Password. Countries are listed in alphabetical order.
To find a reference work on your subject you can search the Curtin Library Catalogue by using a keyword search. Use terms to describe the broader concept of your subject and then enter 'dictionaries' or 'encyclopedias' or ‘bibliography’. For example:
Russian revolution and bibliography
India and encyclopedias
To find a government report on your subject you can search the Curtin Library Catalogue by using a keyword search. Use terms to describe your subject and then enter 'government report'. For example:
World heritage and government report
If your search does not find any results on your subject, try using broader keywords to describe your subject. You will need to think about the broader concepts your subject falls into.
If this still does not provide any results you may need to search the World Wide Web for government reports on your topic. Try this guide on Internet Published Papers or World Wide Web Sites.
You can also use the Library’s Government and Legal Information link to view online Australian and international government resources.
To find a conference proceeding on your subject you can search the Curtin Library Catalogue by using a keyword search. Use terms to describe your subject and then enter 'conference' or 'proceedings'. For example:
Russian revolution and conference
World heritage and conference
If your search does not find any results on your subject, try using broader keywords to describe your subject. You will need to think about the broader concepts your subject falls into.
If this still does not provide any results you may need to search the World Wide Web for conference proceedings on your subject. For assistance in how to do this see the section in this guide on Internet Published Papers or World Wide Web Sites.
You can search for Audio-Visual material using the Curtin Library Catalogue. Select the 'Advanced Search' option in the title bar (at the top of the screen). Enter your keywords in the same way as you did when finding a monograph (book). At the bottom of the screen is an area called ' Limit search to'. You will see a box labeled 'Material'. Click on the drop down menu and select ' Visual Materials'. This means your search will be limited to videos, DVDs, slides and posters. Here is how this screen will look:
Now select the 'Find' button. Items that appear in this result list are all classified as audio-visual items and so you can use any of these items.
If your search does not find any results on your subject, try using broader keywords to describe your subject. You will need to think about the broader concepts your subject falls into.
Journal articles provide very up-to-date, specific information about a subject.
A printed journal is one which has been printed in a hard copy format and you will be able to access it physically (rather than electronically).
An electronic journal is one which is available to download electronically online.
Finding an electronic journal article
Lets start by looking at how to find electronic journal articles on your subject. To do this you should search the library databases. The library databases are online collections of journal articles which the library subscribes to. They usually consist of several hundred or thousand journals, and may be multidisciplinary or subject specific. Some of the library databases are full-text databases where about 50% or more of the journal articles are available online. This means you can download the article on the screen. Recommended full text databases to search are:
You can link to these databases above or from the Library home page (you will see links on the left hand side of the screen). You will need to login with your Curtin ID and Password.
To search a database you can use a similar keyword search to the one that you used in the library catalogue except you can now be more specific. The search results will display journal articles which have both or all of the terms in the title and abstract (summary) of the articles.
Finding a print journal article
To find a print journal article look through your library database search results. You will see that some of the references may not have the full text of the article. You can use these references to find out whether this journal article is available at Curtin Library as a hard copy (physical) journal.
To do this click on the Find-it icon: 
. This is a piece of software which will search the Curtin Library Catalogue to see if the library holds the journal which this article can be found in. You are looking for the message which appears under the heading ' Catalogue Access'. If this says:'‘Holdings in Curtin Library Catalogue' then select the red 'GO' button which appears next to this message:
This will take you to the entry for this journal within the Curtin Library Catalogue. Your next step is to see whether the library holds the particular volume that your article is published in. To do this select the red 'Check Availability' link:
You will now see the Holdings record for this journal. Look at the line which says ' Summary Holdings'. This will tell you which volumes the library holds:
The summary holdings statement in the above example says that the library has from volume 25 to present day for this journal. You will need to check the reference of the journal article in the library database which you, used to find out which volume number you require. If your volume number appears in the 'Summary Holdings' statement in the library catalogue (as shown in the above screen picture) then you can write down the shelf number and floor level and retrieve this journal from the shelves. You can then read the article. Print journals held in the library can not be borrowed but you can photocopy the article.
Search tips:
You can use Boolean operators, AND , OR and NOT to combine your search terms, and effectively narrow down or broaden your search. Placing the word:
AND between two terms will narrow your search down, as you will only get documents that contain both terms. Use this to link different concepts together (e.g. dogs AND cats)
OR between two terms broadens your search as you will get documents that contain either one of your terms. Use this to search for alternative words for the same concept (e.g. dogs OR canines)
NOT between two words will exclude a term from your search (e.g. football NOT soccer)
You can use a question mark ? to help you search for both American and English spelling. For example if you enter labo?r it will search for both 'labour' and 'labor' at the same time. This is called a wildcard search.
You can use an asterisk * to search for different versions of a word. For example if you enter educat* it will search for educate, education, educating, educated etc. This is called truncation.
In the ProQuest database always select the Scholarly Journals tab in the results list to view journal articles. This will filter out the newspaper articles, magazine articles, dissertations etc.
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News reports are the most up to date source of information you can find. The easiest way to find these is online. By searching one of the library's databases called ProQuest on your subject, you can select the Newspapers tab or the Magazines tab to see just articles from newspapers or just articles from magazines. Because you are now searching a library database you can be really specific with your keywords.
If you can't find any newspaper articles on your subject using Proquest you can use the library database Factiva. This is a database of newspaper articles only.
There are also newspapers available on the Internet which give you recent articles. Here are some suggestions
Australian Newspapers Online
ABYZ News Links
WorldNews.com
Online Newspapers
More help ?
You can search for Internet news or commentary sources a number of different ways:
Handy hint : Look for keywords of 'opinion column' or 'editorial' within your search results or within the website you are in. This will provide you with commentary sources.
An Internet published paper is a paper which is freely available on the Internet to read. To locate a paper on your subject go into the 'Advanced search' feature of a search engine of your choice (such as Google). You should see an option to limit your search to a file format. By selecting '.pdf' or '.doc' you will be limiting your search to papers. Enter the keywords for your subject and select search. You will see that only 'pdf' files (which are scanned images) or Word documents appear in your results list.
Using Google or Yahoo to find information about your subject is not difficult, but it can be hard to find quality and authoritative information.
Here are a few hints on finding quality information and evaluating it:
For more on finding quality information see InfoTrekk: Trek 7: Searching the WWW
For more on evaluating your information see InfoTrekk Trek 8: Evaluating Resources.
Email discussion lists are email lists of a group of people within the same subject interest. Any message sent to the list goes to the whole group. They are a useful mechanism for communicating with others interested in a particular subject area. Subjects can vary from scholarly areas such as qualitative research to leisure topics such as grunge rock music.
To find a discussion list on your subject try an internet search for "email discussion list" and your subject. For example: Russian revolution and email discussion list.
Good luck with your assignment!
