Human Resource Education 495
SPECIAL STUDY & INVESTIGATION
A Guide to Library Research for Human Resource Education 495
Accessing Electronic Resources Off-Campus |
Articles |
Books & Journals |
Citing Sources |
Research Assistance
This site has been created to assist you in exploring library resources related to your distance
learning experience. Our library is one of the largest in the United States and it can be a bit
overwhelming at first. We will try to make things a little easier for you, but don't hesitate to
ask questions.
ACCESSING ELECTRONIC RESOURCES OFF-CAMPUS
IMPORTANT! For off-campus access to UIUC Library resources, you will go through the proxy
server. An explanation of the proxy server is at
Proxy Server For E-Resources. When you try to use
a resource from off campus, you will be prompted for your University NetID and password. Once
that's verified, you'll get a link to begin using the database through the proxy server.
FINDING ARTICLES
Scholarly journal articles are one of the primary means of communicating research ideas. They
are an important component of academic research and give you some insight into ongoing debates and
scholarly conversations about your topic. You can find articles through database searches.
Finding articles is a two-step process:
- First, search for the topic you are interested in by using the article databases listed below.
- Try words to describe the group of individuals you are researching: Asian Americans, Latino
Americans, Gays and Lesbians, Christians, Teenage mothers, Upper class, etc.
- Try words to describe your research area: stereotypes, oppression, historical
landscape.
- Consider searching for these concepts together. For example, “Asian Americans” and “
stereotypes” = some great articles and books.
- Use the thesaurus to find additional or similar terms.
- Find an article that looks interesting? Look at the article's citation for subjects use in that
database and run additional searches using these subjects.
- Next, find the actual text of the articles you want by clicking on the
Discover button in a database.
- If the Discover page indicates that we have online full text, click the link to get to the
article. In some cases, we may have the full text article available in multiple
databases. If the Discover page says there is no online full-text available, click the link
next to "Library Catalog- Holdings in VUFIND" to search the library catalog for print holdings.
This will show you if the library owns a copy of the journal/newspaper/book in PRINT form, and
tells you the location of that print volume. NOTE: The library catalog will show you the results by
JOURNAL title (not article title). You will need to find the year and/or volume and issue number of
the journal that contains your article.
- If the journal article you are looking for is not available electronically, you will need to
contact the
Online & Continuing Education Library. That service
can provide you with UIUC material if you live elsewhere as long as you are a registered distant
education student for this course.
OR
- If you know the citation of the articles you want, from bibliographies or suggested readings
lists, you can use the
Journal and Article Locator to determine
if we have full-text online or in print.
Recommended Article Databases
-
ABI/Inform(Business
information)
-
ERIC
(Education Information)
-
PsycINFO(Psychology
and Behavior Information)
-
Digest of Education Statistics Available
both electronically as well as in print (370.973 Un3d1) in our reference collection, the Digest of
Education Statistics is the official U.S. authority for statistics on almost every aspect of
education.
-
Education
Full Text Education Full Text indexes and abstracts articles from journals and yearbooks
published in the U.S. and elsewhere. Books relating to education published in 1995 or later are
also indexed. Abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. Abstracts describe the content and
scope of the source documents. Full-text coverage begins in January 1996.
-
Datamonitor/Marketline A
business information company. Search for industry profiles and trends, browse over 10,000 company
profiles and research global market information in over 50 countries.
FINDING BOOKS & JOURNALS
Library catalogs are used for two purposes. First, if you know exactly what you are looking for
- an exact title or author - you can use the catalog to locate your material. This works for book
titles and journal titles. Second, you can use library catalogs to discover material that might be
helpful to you by doing subject and keyword searching.
-
Online Library Catalog - Look here to
find books, DVDs, magazines or journals containing articles that you need, and many other
resources. In addition to the 12 million volumes we have on this campus, you can connect to over 76
other libraries in Illinois and request that books be sent to you.
When you find something you want in the catalog, write down the following:
Location - in which library the item is kept (or libraries, if we have
multiple copies)
Call Number - this number is essential for finding the item on the
shelf
Status - is it available for you to check out?
-
WorldCat and Interlibrary Loan - The places to verify citations for
books and request books and articles you cannot find elsewhere. Ordering books and journals via
Interlibrary Loan is free and generally fairly quick.
CITING SOURCES
Guidelines for citing electronic and print resources are available from the Reference Library's
Cite a Sourcepage and the Social Sciences,
Health, and Education Library's
Style and Writing Guide.
RefWorks
A great tool for writing papers,
RefWorks helps you export bibliographic records from
databases, change the citation styles as needed, and import the citation directly into a Word
document so you can create bibliographies on the fly.
RESEARCH ASSISTANCE
Ask-A-Librarian for Help with Your Research
Use our
Ask-A-Librarian Service to IM, chat, email,
phone or find a reference librarian.
Nancy O'Brien
Office: Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library, 100 Main Library
Phone: 217/333-2408
Email:
npobrien@illinois.edu
Contact a librarian to request an appointment for an in-depth
Research Consultation.
Finding Your Way Around
There are over 25 departmental libraries on our campus, and sometimes it may be difficult to
determine where to find the resources you need. For your class, the library that you will be using
most is the
Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL). We are
located in SSHEL North (Room 100) and SSHEL South (Room 101) of the Main Library building. Do no
hesitate to come in and ask one of our energetic and helpful information desk assistants.
More Help Using the Library
-
Research Process A step-by-step guide
to research that takes you through the entire process, from choosing your topic to citing
sources.
