SES ICT

Week 8 Researching Using Electronic Media

Last week we used tables to size and fit objects into our document
files.

We looked at General open sites

...like Amazon

and Wikipedia
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And Google Images

We talked about the concept of

as a means of finding information and refining searches.

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This week we will be looking at electronic resources and how to access
them.

As this handout contains a lot of information consider it more as a

reference guide rather than just a one-off tutorial.

We will begin by looking at Keywords in detail.

If you go to the Library page at http://library.liv.ac.uk/ (URL if you are at

home)

You login to the Library using your University username and password
using the login box on the student homepage.

login on the Student homepage: at http://www.liv.ac.uk/students/

Go to the Library Catalogue

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Notice that you can find information if you know

Title Author
Subject

Keyword

Author/Title

Title and Author are terms we are all pretty clear with, but Keyword and
Subject are a little more vague.

The Library pages define Subject Search as

Lets us try to find a subject search for Durkheim

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Type Durkheim into the Subject Search page of the Library Catalogue and
press Search

You should have a page like the one below

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Notice the 3rd column marked Subjects 1-6

This does not mean that only six texts have been found.

Notice the column on the far right hand side

This means that for the Subject

Durkheim Emile 1858 1917
62texts have been found.

Durkheimian School Of Sociology

has 13 texts under this subject
heading.

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If we click on the Durkheimian School Of Sociology we find the following
screen

If we go to the 1st text on the list

And click on the title in blue it will take us to this page

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This page will tell us about the status of the book, if it on loan and where to
find it.

Notice that the Subject covers three areas

 Durkheim, Emile, 1858-1917

o Durkheim school of Sociology
 Sociology

The subject areas will always go from the

Very Specific General

So whereas this particular book deals explicitly with Durkheim, it also tells
us that it covers the general subject areas of the Durkheim School of
Sociology and the academic discipline of Sociology.

Try a Subject search using the terms

Slavery Great Britain Colonies History

 How many texts do you come up with?

 Who wrote these texts?

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What if you know a general area of research but you do not know any
titles, authors or subject words to use?

Then use Keywords.

Keyword: A word or phrase which is used when searching for

information in the search engines or directories. It is these words
or phrases that editors use when describing or explaining the
content of their texts.
Keywords are useful if you do not know the area you are researching in
depth and need to find out information.

The Library Catalogue Keyword page looks like this

Notice that you can

change the
parameters of your
search to say what
type of format you
want the data to be.

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Boolean Operators and Other Search Refiners

Do a Key word with the following parameters

How many electronic books did you find?

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What is an Electronic Resource?
As well as using the library to find texts as in books and journals, called
hard-copy, you can also use it to find electronic texts.

We hold licence on many texts both printed up and in electronic format via
NoWAL (North West Academic Libraries) Consortium.

You can read these texts just as if they were a real book, you can even
download some versions of them to keep, as if you had made a photocopy of
a chapter.

ADVANTAGES

 many more people can get hold of the electronic versions

 you can access them remotely from home
 people can’t hide or steal them
 they do not need repair or binding and they do not take up shelf
space.
 Exact duplicate of print, i.e. page numbers correlate for citation

DISADVANTAGES

 not everyone likes to read in electronic formats

 e-books are timed so you can only have them for a certain period
 like everything electronic they can ‘GO DOWN’ that is, break down.
 can encourage plagiarism and cheating.

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The Electronic library page will give you all the resources that the
University holds electronically

If we go to Resources by Subject,

Highlight Sociology and click Go

we come to this page

How many databases are there for Sociology?

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Again we find that the databases go from the most specific to the general.

Very Specific General

ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index JSTOR, database of academic articles
and Abstracts that are over 5 years old.
Blackwells Encyclopedia of Sociology Wiley Interscience
Online

Each database will lead to another search site

this time within the database clicked.

SO

the links would lead you to the following pages

ASSIA:
Applied
Social
Sciences
Index
and
Abstracts

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Blackwell
Encyclopaedia
of Sociology
Online

Do a Quick Search or Basic Search for Durkheim in one of the following

databases.

 ASSIA:
 Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology Online
 JSTOR

How many hits did you find (how many texts)?

Some databases will show articles with the following symbol

If you see this symbol you must click it to find out how to get the
information.

If only a hard-copy version is shown then that means we only have a hard
copy version, we do not hold the licence on the electronic copy or it does not
exist in an electronic format.

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As well as doing a keyword search you can go straight to electronic

databases via the electronic library

Go to the Core E-Journals

and highlight the radio button by clicking on it

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For SES subjects

the two most useful
databases will be

Highwire

and

JSTOR

Go into Highwire Press

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In the Search fields put in Durkheim

Make sure the ‘all’ radio button is pressed

Press Search

How many hits did you get ?

How to refine your searches

Go to

Too Many results? View Tools to help narrow your search

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Click on Homicide, then press search

How many articles are found now?

Redefine the search again, click on suicide and search

How many articles are found now?

What does this tell us about keyword searches?

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Go to Durkheim’s Latent Theory of Gender and Homicide

It is the 1st article

Notice this box, if it does not say this you will not be able to
access the material without paying for it.

This article is not supported by the University and if you

wanted to read it you would have to pay for it.

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To return to Durkheim’s Latent Theory of Gender and Homicide

The Abstract gives you a brief

overview of the article, it will also
include a list of Keywords at the
bottom.
Always read the abstract BEFORE
you download to check the text is
relevant to your work.

Click on PDF to save the file in the

correct format.
If you are at home download to
your C: drive
If you are at University download
to your M: drive and attach to an e-
mail to send to your home.
Find more like this
will automatically use the key word terms in the abstract to find other
articles that have the same keywords.

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How to Download an Article

Electronic articles are saved in a format known as PDF (Portable

Document Format) as created by Adobe systems.

If you want to read PDF at home you MUST download the adobe reader,
but do not worry, if you go via the University you can get a free copy.

Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

and follow the instructions

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Abstract of Durkheim’s Latent Theory of Gender and Homicide

You will now get a screen like this

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By clicking on the save icon you will download a copy

Remember to save to either your M: drive or your pen drive if you are at
the University.

If you are at home save to your C: drive.

Do not forget to change the name of the file as it will automatically come up
with a numerical title

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First page of PDF of Durkheim’s Latent Theory of Gender and Homicide

Place the cursor over the images of papers to see thumbnail images

Useful for finding specific pages

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 JSTOR, short for Journal Storage, is the online system for archiving
academic journals
 Anything older than 5 years old will usually be re-directed to JSTOR
regardless of who the original publisher was.
 JSTOR hold numerous seminal texts, that is important works that
changed the subject area in which they are written.
 If in doubt, always look in JSTOR.

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E-Books
 Exact electronic versions of printed books, including blank pages. It is the

“original” used to publish the book, not something created subsequently

 can be viewed online on any PC connected to the Internet, no special reader

required (only Adobe)

 eBooks are available to browse online, although you may need to give your

ID and password

 Unlike e-journals, still 1 book, 1 reader, while you browse no one else can

use the item.

What Can I do with e-books?

 PDF or HTML formats, 1 page at a time you can:

o Read
o Cut and paste

o Print

o Save

 You can jump to a specific page

 You can add, edit and remove notes associated with individual items for

your own purposes

 You can have several books open at once e.g. to help decide which is better.

 You can search a dictionary (really useful)

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Let us return to the Library catalogue Keyword search limited to e-books.

You should now have the following page, click on the 1 st entry

Notice that the entries go in chronological order from the most recent.

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The first entry leads us to

Notice the status

Networked
It has no class number

Click on the Green Go

If you are
working outside
the University you
will be redirected
to the EZProxy
Login

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Notice that you

password will
not show up,
like when you
A.N.Otherr
login

Either working remotely or on Campus you will eventually be redirected to

the e-book.

Scroll down the scroll bar

until you find the table of contents

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Clicking on the Introduction will take you to the Introduction

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Ebrary Books

Many books are electronically held by the ebrary .

To read ebrary e-books you must install ebrary Reader:

On a Managed Windows Service PC on campus, just choose Start ->

Install -> Viewers -> Ebrary Reader

On a PC elsewhere, download ebrary Reader. It is available for a variety

of web browsers on both Windows and Macintosh computers.

Please be aware of this very important notice, “The AOL browser, Netscape

6, Opera, and ISP-branded browsers (versions of Internet Explorer your ISP

provided to you) are not supported” this means that if you browser is not

exactly the same as the University’s it will not support this application and

ebrary won’t work.

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What’s so Good about Ebrary?
You can search the full-text of all of the titles available to us on ebrary,

or browse or search specific fields (e.g. title, author) to find books in your

chosen area.

When you are reading an ebrary e-book, you can highlight any word and

look it up in free online resources like dictionaries, thesauri and search

engines. We will add the ability to search paid-for resources such as the

OED, Scopus and Web of Knowledge.

You can register to create a personal ebrary account which will allow you

to create a personal bookshelf, and add highlights, annotations and

bookmarks.

Once you have been successful you will get this window

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Homework

Next week we will be starting our PowerPoint presentations.

This week decide what areas of research you would like to show in your

PowerPoint.

Create a list of five key words that you will use to research your

PowerPoint.

Place them in a table format.

Key Words

Using the keywords you have thought of download a PDF file that is

relevant to your area of research.

Download and save to your pen drive any images, graphs or objects that

you would like to use in your PowerPoint.

Send the Keywords and PDF to me by Monday at 10 p.m.

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