Here are the slides from the library session at the Business, Management and Economics Residency on 9/24/16 at the Empire State College Genesee Valley Center.

1. Empire State College
Library
Introduction to the

2. Library Web Site
 Yes, we have a library!
 It’s entirely online
 The librarians are real people
 (We do not have textbooks)

3. Subject Guides
 “One stop shopping” for your research and
study needs in a broad subject area
 Organized into tabs
 Journal Articles, ebooks, reference materials,
selected web sites, etc.
 Ask A Librarian chat box

4. Databases
 Database (in library terms) = container and
search tool for digital articles, books, videos,
etc.
 The database lists them and sometimes has
full-text.

5. We don’t have everything
 No print resources
 Not all resources have made it online yet
 We’re not big enough to afford to subscribe to
everything that is online

6. Getting stuff elsewhere
 Any SUNY or NY community college library
 Take your college photo ID
 Monroe CC, Erie CC, Geneseo, UB, Buff State
 Regional borrower’s card
 Get it from your local public library
 Use it at local college libraries

7. How to get help

8. Ask A Librarian
 Phone or email
 If you leave a message after hours, we will get
back to you the next business day
 Live chat (now 24/7!)
 If you chat after hours, you may be speaking to
a librarian who’s not from ESC, but is a member
of a consortium we belong to

9. Self Help
 Video or text and image tutorials
 Research concepts
 Technical how tos
 Research Skills Tutorial
 self-paced, ungraded mini-course in how to do
research

10. Workshops
 Live webinars
 Taught by a librarian
 Take from home
 You need a computer with internet,
speakers/headphones, and preferably a
microphone

11. How information is
organized
WHY IS THIS NOT EASY???

12. Information “packages”
 Books
 Take a long time to write and even longer to publish
 Tend to be about a broader view of a bigger topic.
 Articles
 They’re shorter so they take less time to write and publish
 Tiny slice of a topic, but very in-depth.
 Reference books
 Information is not original. (Synthesis and summary.)
 Information is typically years old.
 Gray literature
 Not formally published
 Documents, reports, and data sets - different kinds used in
different subject areas
 Other – News, entertainment, etc.

13. Economics
 It costs to publish
 Printing is the smallest part
 Quality control (peer review, editing)
 Organizing and making available online in database form
 Publishers and vendors take on those costs
 They pass the costs on to the library in subscription fees
 They also control HOW we access the content
 Bundling it together like cable channels
 Requiring a password
 Limiting how we can use it
 Not playing nice with their competitors
 That’s why it’s not all in one place with one easy search box.

14. Searching/Researching

15. Getting an idea
 Get ideas about possible research topics from
what you’ve been studying in your course:
 Textbooks
 Assigned readings
 Mini-lectures, videos, etc. in your course

16. What makes a good research
question?
 NOT a question with a quick and
straightforward answer
 Enough to write about…
 But not too much!

17. Use the library’s reference
materials
 Expand your knowledge
 Explanations
 Definitions of vocabulary

18. Don’t cite reference resources!
 They’re synthesis and summary, not original
research.
 Your next step is to search for the original
research sources you can cite in your paper.

19. Databases v. Google
 Databases are a closed system – they don’t
try to index “everything,” just the content that’s
selected to be put in them
 More powerful searching
 Field search means you can search for “William
Shakespeare” in either SU for works about him
or AU for works by him
 Narrow by date, document type, etc.

20. Databases can’t understand
English
 It just matches what you type in with what it
finds in the documents it contains, and the
metadata of those documents.
 If you type in dog, it’s not going to bring up
canine or poodle.
 You have to do all that work for the database.

21. Step 1: Concepts
 First break your search down into pieces –
each concept is one piece.
 Relationship between autism and digestive
problems

22. Step 2: Synonyms
 Autism and also Asperger’s, Autism Spectrum
Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder
 Digestive Problems and also Digestive
Disorders, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, GERD,
Reflux Disease, Inflamatory Bowel Disorder,
Crohns Disease

23. Step 3: Boolean Operators
 We will talk about these in a minute.

24. Which database(s) to search in?
 OneSearch is always a good starting place.
 Check the Journal Articles tab of your subject
guide for other ideas.
 Or look for relevant databases in Article
Databases

25. Searching in a database
 DEMO TIME!

26. Regroup
 Take notes while you research.
 As soon as you find a document you think you
might use, get the citation information and
permalink.
 This way you’ll know what source and page
number (!!!) you took a piece of information
from.

27. Ask, what have I learned so far?
 Do you have a clearer idea of your thesis?
 Of how you will back up your thesis with
arguments?
 Of what kinds of information you will need to cite
to prove and illustrate your points?
 Of what authors are important in this subject
area?
 Of what theories, models, or frameworks might
apply?
 Of major disagreements, controversies, or gaps in
our collective knowledge?

28. Search for the rest of the articles
and books you will need
 Boolean search for your topic.
 Don’t forget to follow the citation trail!
 Look in the References section of a relevant
article to find more (older) articles on that topic!

29. Special business document types
 Tabs on the BME Subject Guide for SWOT
Analysis, Company Profile, Annual Reports,
Case Studies, etc.

30. Get help searching
 The Search section of the Research Skills
Tutorial covers all of this.
 Or use your handout!
 Or Ask A Librarian!

31. Evaluating information

32. First: Is it relevant?
 Skim the abstract or table of contents to
decide if an information source is worth
further attention.
 As soon as you find a source that you think
you might use, get the citation information and
the permalink.

33. Next, for each relevant source,
ask yourself:
 Who put this information out there?
 Do they know what they’re talking about?
 Do they have a vested interest or an agenda?
 Is there a money trail to follow?

34. Is it scholarly?
 By experts, for experts
 Peer reviewed
 Journal articles and some books
 Some of our databases have all scholarly content;
others let you limit your search to it
 Research paper sources should be scholarly
 But scholarly is not a guarantee of quality or
objectivity – peer reviewers make mistakes too

35. Sections of a research article:
 Literature review: Background and context –
what other authors have said about this topic.
 Methods: How they conducted the study. Check
to see if methodology and stats are kosher.
 Findings/Conclusions/Results: Did it turn out
the way they hypothesized? What was learned?
 Discussion: More of that, plus implications.

36. Get help evaluating
 The Evaluate section of the Research Skills
Tutorial covers all of this.
 Or Ask A Librarian!
 We can’t tell you if it’s good, but we can help
you with the questions you need to ask to make
a judgment call.

37. Using and citing information

38. DO NOT
 Don’t gather facts
and quotes and
string them together.
 Don’t write your
paper and then go
find facts and quotes
to back up what you
said.
DO!
 Build YOUR
argument and back it
up with facts and
some quotes
 Research some
more to back up
those points, but be
open to adjusting
what you were going
to say.

39. Citing Guide
 APA citation style
 Tutorials on how to format papers and do your
in-text citations and References list
 Citing Your Sources online workshop

40. When to cite:
 Every time you quote.
 Every time you paraphrase.
 Every time you use a fact that is not common
knowledge.
 You need both in-text citations and a
references list.

41. Citation Tools
 Save your citation information online – access
it anywhere
 Organize your citation information, along with
the notes you take!
 Insert properly formatted citations into your
document
 Fair warning: garbage in = garbage out

42. Make sure you have a
handout!
It has lots of useful reminders and links.