Research is an adventure. It's open-ended, exploratory, surprising, frustrating. and full of blind alleys and interesting side trips. It doesn't have to be lonely. Do compare notes with your colleagues and take advantage of the friendly people sitting at the reference desk. We love to help you find what you're looking for.

Reference Works / Finding Books / Finding Articles / Finding Journals / Web Sites /

Interlibrary Loan / Citing Your Sources / Contacting Julie

Reference Works
Reference works can be found on the second (main) floor and are an excellent place to begin your research. Some provide quick facts while others contain scholarly overviews. In addition to the ones listed below, browse the nearby shelves. Books in this library are grouped by subject, so you are likely to find other useful books in the same area.

• Countries and their Cultures. 4 vols. (Ref GN 307 .C68 2001) Covers ethnic relations, cultural features, political life, the arts, etc.
  

• Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures. 3 vols. (Ref F 1406 .E515 2000) Contains brief essays and recommended reading.

• Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, and Society in the United States. 4 vols. (Ref E 184 .S75 E587 2005) Covers Latinos in the United states in over 650 essays that tackle topics from baseball to Zorro, significant places, groups of people, event, and more. The fourth volume includes significant primary source documents.

• Encyclopedia of World Cultures. 10 vols. (Ref GN 550 .E53 1991) Covers over 1,500 culture groups, alphabetically arranged within regions. Summarizes information on the distribution, belief systems, kinship structures, and history of the groups.
  

• Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. 4 vols. (Ref E184 .S75 O97 2005) Presents detailed essays covering multiple aspects of Latino culture in the United States.

• Racial and Ethnic Relations in America. 3 vols. (Ref E 49 .R33 2000) A good place to define terms, get historical context, or find short overviews of topics.
  

• South America, Central America and the Caribbean 2006. (Ref F1401 .S68 2006) Part of the Europa World Series, this excellent guide contains detailed information on the economy, political situation, and history of each country.

See also our guide to Ethnic and Area Studies for more reference works and selected Web directories devoted to a particular population or region of the world.

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Finding articles

Databases for articles and other materials offer references to publications that may or may not be in this library; some databases offer full text of articles and others simply citations. There are in-depth databases that cover publications in a particular field and others that are interdisciplinary. Databases can be accessed from a drop-down list on the library's main page; descriptions can be found here.

Academic Search Premier
Searches both general magazines and scholarly journals on a wide variety of topics. Some are full text; others are merely citations to things that have been published. One way to limit a search is to check the "scholarly (peer reviewed) journals" box to exclude popular magazines from your search.

America: History and Life
Indexes literature related to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistorical times to the present. This extensive database covers over 2,000 journals published worldwide including all key English-language historical journals, selected historical journals from major countries, and state and local history journals, as well as books, dissertations and book reviews.

HLAS Online
The Handbook of Latin American Studies is an online annotated bibliography on Latin America edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Coverage alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Over 5,000 new references are added each year.

JSTOR
Full-text backfiles to over 350 journals from more than 25 academic disciplines published between the 19th and 21st centuries, including a collection focused on Language & Literature. JSTOR provides complete journal backruns from the date of initial publication up to a "moving wall" of 3 to 5 years before the present year.

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Finding Journals

• Journal Locator: Find out if we subscribe to a particular journal, either online or in print
• Interlibrary Loan: If the journal is not available in print or full text at Gustavus, you may request copies of articles through Interlibrary Loan.

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Web Sites

Use the Web with care

Libraries often pay for services through the web; these aren't indexed in search engines Some "free" sites for magazines and newspapers charge for using their archives; library databases offer them at no charge. Some questions are easier to answer through the web than others. If it has to do with current events, the law, opinions, computers, popular culture, commercial products, organizations, or government affairs, the web offers a lot; if you're looking for research or scholarship, you aren't as likely to find what you want (though in some fields that is changing). Not everyone wants to give their research away for free.

Planning a search

• Think about what you need and which key words might describe it
• Think about what organizations or government entities might provide information on your topic
• Use what you find to refine your search (such as the name of an organization, a government agency, a site that everyone is linking to)
• Use selective directories if you have a broad topic (Search engines work best for narrow topics or specific facts.)
• Use an appropriate database if you aren't finding quality material

Use clues in the URLs to assess potential sources

• edu = higher education (usually in the US)
• gov = federal government
• k12 = primary or secondary school
• com = company (often personal sites, too)
• org = organization
• net = network
• country abbreviations: ca (Canada); au (Australia); uk (United Kingdom) jp (Japan); se (Sweden) . . .

Be prepared to

• shorten a URL to get to a root page by deleting everything after the first /
• follow links to find out about the page's author or sponsoring agency

Evaluate!

• Who is the author? Why should you trust him/her?
• Where does the site come from? An organization? An individual? Which country?
• When was it put together? Is it frequently updated?
• What does it say? Does it make sense? Does it back up its claims?
• Why is it there? What is the author's purpose in presenting this information and does that purpose suggest a particular bias?

For Practice: Evaluate these three examples:

• Example One
• Example Two
• Example Three

How does this example differ from the first three?

• Example Four

Finding Web sites

In addition to general search engines, use these selective Web directories to find useful sites:

Infomine - a database of scholarly Web sites maintained at the University of California
Librarians' Index to the Internet - a more general guide to valuable Web sources, also based in California
Scout Archives - maintained at the University of Wisconsin
World Wide Web Virtual Library - the original Web directory

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Interlibrary loan

We can order books and articles from other libraries if you need something we don't have. For more information, visit the interlibrary loan page.

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Citing Your Sources

Citing Your Sources -- Includes basic models for MLA, APA, and Chicago citations as well as a link to a more detailed online guide and sample papers. If you're confused about whether you should cite a source or not, take a look at this explanation of plagiarism from the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

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Contacting Julie

I am always happy to chat with you about any aspect of your research. The best way to reach me is to email me at jgilber2@gac.edu. You can also give me a call at x7552 or become my Facebook friend.