Talking in the Library

Short Cuts: Ask Dave!

Q:  Hey Dave!  I was walking into the library the other day and was like “HOLY CRAP WHAT HAPPENED??!!??”  So, um, what did happen?

A:  Dëthkløk happened.  They were touring with Windir and The Sword and all three bands came by because they heard that K-State Libraries were metal.  Horseplay and shenanigans ensued.

Actually, that’s not what happened, but it would have been seriously awesome if it has.  As awesome as sky pirates fighting ninjas riding on robot pterodactyls with laser eyes, which, coincidentally, will appear on the cover of the next Mastodon album.  We’re just getting new carpet.  Also, we’re consolidating services into one convenient stop, so when you have a reference question, need to check out books, use reserve material, and learn about the databases, you can just come to the Hale Library Help Desk, located on the second floor (once it reopens – until then come see us on the first floor in our temporary home at the former Science Reference Desk).  And one stop shopping is kind of metal.  Maybe more like Hair Metal, but the point stands.

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Short Cuts: It's the end of the year as we know it

And you feel fine, right?

With the end of dead week and the coming of finals, there also comes a break in the delight that you have come to know and love as Short Cuts. Please don't cry during our brief hiatus. You know how we love to provide tips and tricks for doing research, so if we come up with one that just can't wait, we'll post it for you. In the meantime, please feel free to read through the archives periodically throughout the summer, just to keep yourself sharp.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in Fall 2009, but keep an eye out for flashes of brilliance between now and then.

This doesn't, of course, mean that the Libraries aren't here for you all summer. Just check our hours, which are a bit different during intersession and summer sessions.

Good luck on those exams, watch your stuff, please observe the quiet zones, come have some coffee, and come back to a brand spanking new Hale Library Commons.

Short Cuts: Intelligence, Jason Bourne Style

We librarians like to talk about information: how it’s organized, how to find it, how important it is to your research. But what do you have after you’ve done the hunting, gathering and digesting? According to the CIA, you have intelligence.

Intelligence is “information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted.” I love this concept because it articulates the goal we want library patrons to achieve using our resources. Think of intelligence as the sequel to information, sort of like Information: The Next Generation or Information Reloaded. The Information Supremacy, even.

The CIA takes all of their intelligence about countries and cultures around the globe and publishes it in The World Factbook, available in its entirety on the Internet. Pakistan and Mexico have both been in the news lately, and maybe you have no idea where Islamabad is located or how many people live in Mexico City. The Factbook is a prime source for those details, and provides a Country Profile for hundreds of other nations. Each profile includes a map and summary of the country’s background, as well as lots of up-to-date facts and statistics on its geography, peoples, government, economy and more. Want to find international rankings for categories like unemployment rate, imports, mobile phone users and electricity consumption? The Factbook also provides these handy Country Comparisons.

The next time you’re looking for bits of information to turn into a stellar intelligence briefing (a.k.a. research paper), check out The World Factbook.

-J. Bailey

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Book cover image credit: Amazon.com

Short Cuts: Wait! Don't Close! I need help!

Well, you made it – you’re almost done. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and you’re almost done with the semester. Woot! Congratulations!

What? You still have that final paper to write? And you haven’t started your research? Whew. I bet you’re freaking out right now, huh?

Never fear, the library’s here. And you know what? We’re here to help. I am sure you have read the kajillon articles and blog posts about all the cool services we have here at K-State Libraries. And I am sure you know all about our awesome Ask-A-Librarian page and many super helpful tools and tricks because you are totally up to date on your ShortCuts article readings (but click here if you are not!). So…since you already know how we are totally here to help, want to help, and want to see you get through the semester, I am just going to write about what Hale Library’s hours are for the next few weeks.

But first, a musical interlude from Miley Cyrus:

The struggles I’m facing,
The chances I’m taking
Sometimes they knock me down but
No I’m not breaking
The pain I’m knowing
But these are the moments that
I’m going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on,

There’s always going to be another mountain
I’m always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain’t about how fast I get there,
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side…
It’s the climb…

Are you all inspired now to keep going on and making it through the semester?

 You can view Hale Library’s building hours by clicking this link, or you can view the screenshot I have included here of our hours for the next few weeks. But what you need to know is basically this: beginning May 4th, the Hale Library building is open 24 hours a day until May 15th at 6pm. Yep, that includes the weekend of the 8th – 10th! Then after that we move to our summer hours which means that the building closes at 6pm except on Saturdays and Sundays when we close at 5pm. You can also view our branch library’s hours here.

Questions? Concerns? Ask and comment away! That’s what we’re here for!

-M.E. Fritch

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Short Cut: Short Cut Short Cuts

Here at Short Cuts, we pride ourselves on offering you short cuts to completing your research.  As final projects have Hale Library swarming with students like piranhas at a pool party,* I give you these short cuts:

Ask a Librarian - ask us at any point during your research process - from when you're starting and want to be sure that you're on the right track to the final moments, when you can't find that article that you found last week that was perfect, but you forgot to write down the publication date or author and you need to cite it!

Subject Guides - stumped about where to go to start your research?  Try the Subject Guides - there's one for every department or program on campus--and a librarian too!  The guides suggest the most appropriate databases, ejournals, websites and more for your research.

Citation Linker - When you do have a citation for a journal article, or even part of one, as indicated above, use the Citation Linker to find it in our collection

Get It - any time you find yourself just looking at an article abstract in a database, click on the Get It button.  This magic button will look for the full text of the article in other databases, see if we have the issue of the journal you need in our print collection, or allow you to request it from another library via the "We'll try to Get it for you" link.

LibX Toolbar - download this to your favorite browser (well, if IE or Firefox is your favorite) and you will have quick and easy access to K-State Libraries' collections, from anywhere on the web.  With the LibX Toolbar, every ISBN or ISSN links to a search in our catalog.  Highlight and right click on any word or phrase and you can search our catalog or Google Scholar.

Cite It - Need a bibliography?  Use Cite It to plug in information about a book, journal article, whatever you are citing, and Cite It will create a citation for you in both APA and MLA styles.

Write or Die - Have all of the information, but can't form the words?  Try Write or Die, it's the best cure for writer's block that I've ever used.

These are my go-to short cuts, what are yours?

*Huh, I think I just came up with the opening scene in a most excellent natural disaster/horror/slasher flick.

-S.K. Kearns

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

image credit: Pirhanas by saltwell on flickr.

Short Cuts: I'm dying of a cold... or not.

Okay, let's say you wake up one morning and you aren't feeling so hot. Is it a cold, allergies, the flu? Not sure? The Mayo Clinic has an online self-assessment that may help. The page asks you to check your symptoms (dry cough, headache, etc.) and, based on that information, helps you assess your condition. It then offers suggestions on how to ease your symptoms; sadly, none of them are skip class and watch the soaps until you feel better.

Remember, nothing replaces your doctor. If you haven't been feeling well for a while or you just want to be safe, see your doctor!

-T. Coleman

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Short Cuts: Why the asterisk is such a star by J.M. Dale

I was having a conversation with some colleagues the other day about words that are hard to say. "Rural" came up, which is apparently hard to say even if you hail from a rural area. "Juror" was another. For me, one that's a real verbal challenge is "asterisk." It's that extra "s," I think, that really throws me. I end up saying it too slowly - "as-tuh-riskkkkkkk" - or jumbling it all together to get it out - "astrik." Sometimes I avoid the whole ordeal and say "star."

Any way you say it, the asterisk is an awesome tool for doing research in a database. Why? Because it's a truncation symbol. Sounds kind of fancy, right? Well, it's actually pretty simple. When you're plugging a keyword into a database or the catalog, try to think about the root word, and if other words with the same root might help you. So, for instance, if you're researching the effect of soft drink consumption on children, try soft drink and child* as your search terms. Child* tells the database to search for anything that starts with that root, so child, children, children's childhood, etc.

So, is the asterisk magic? Yes, I think so. But it doesn't work in every database (what kind of magic would it be if it were so easy to understand?). Some databases (and our catalog) use other truncation symbols, like the ?. If your search with a * doesn't work, check the help link in the database to see if they have any tips for you, or Ask a Librarian for assistance!

For our catalog, try the ?, the other truncation symbol I mentioned mere moments ago. So if you're interested in finding some Indonesian cookbooks from our world class cookery collection, you might try Indonesian and cook? (cooking, cookbook, cookery, etc).

image credit: underneath a star by jaeWALK on flickr.com

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Short Cuts: Federated Search Engine = Awesome by D.J. Beckley

You might not know this little bit of information, but one of the coolest things to do in the library doesn’t involve acts that might get you banned from the building. It’s actually federated searching and you can do it in the future if you haven’t already! Seemingly contrary to its name, federated searching does not involve the Department of Homeland Security, illegal wiretaps, or raids on your personal belongings. In fact it isn’t really something that you can do; so much as it is something that really awesome databases do (Yes, they are really awesome! & italics used for emphasis, ampersand included).

A federated search doesn’t use just one database. Instead its task is to use as many as possible and does it in a way that both you and the other databases can understand. This is a daunting task given the various interfaces and syntax used in catalogs, databases, and other digital depositories of useful and ‘not so’ useful information. In a federated search, a request for information must move from you (the user) through to the search engine and then on to the databases which then provide results back to the search engine. These results have to then be recognized by the search engine and translated back to you, the user, in a way that you can understand. A couple of examples of federated search engines are ProQuest and Google Scholar. ProQuest turns from mild-mannered database to federated search engine when you click on the link to Select Multiple Databases. This trick will work in a few other databases, too, so keep an eye out for this option (databases are available to K-State faculty, students, and staff, as well as anyone who uses the Infocommons).

Federated search engines, aka portals, like these search many databases to provide you with the results you so desire. So, desire the results you need and use federated search engines like ProQuest. Once again, portals = federated searching = Awesome = the future.

Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates. Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and colleagues - just give us credit!

Short Cuts: Fun with Anagrams by J. Bailey

On a recent flight a fellow passenger told me that airlines desperately need to update their jargon. No wonder people are afraid to fly, he said, when airlines direct passengers to “terminals” and announce that a plane is making its “final” approach.

Libraries are also guilty of using jargon and acronyms that add to the confusion of finding books, articles and more. But instead of me telling you how to overcome that confusion or defining weird library words for you—sometimes even librarians don’t understand this stuff—let’s have some fun with anagrams.

Anagrams can often reveal the meaning of a word just by rearranging the letters. Here are a few examples I generated with help from the Internet Anagram Server:

• Your instructors place books on Course Reserve to keep them Ever So Secure
• Circulation is where you check stuff in and out on the Loan Circuit
• Research Tools can increase a Searcher’s Loot
• The Online Catalog, or Allocating One, tells you where to find what you need
• Help from the Subject Experts guarantees your paper won’t Be Just Excerpts

If you have a library-related anagram to share, feel free to Place Mementos here. In other words, Please Comment!

Short Cuts: How to chat with a librarian by J. Coleman

Chatting with a librarian is much like chatting with a friend; you can skip capitalization, use abbreviations, go wild with emoticons, write in short bursts, and spell phonetically. No giant librarian hand will shoot out of your screen to  "shush" you if you do these things - I promise.  

That having been said, there ARE some important differences between the way you should chat with a friend and the way you should chat with a librarian. First, with a friend, you generally want to avoid TMI (too much information). Hence, you don't discuss too much about your cadaver lab experiences or what happened after your uncle Bob mixed jalapenos, beer, and ice-cream. With a librarian, however, you want to revel in TMI (although, that uncle Bob anecdote is still better left untold). Rather than say "I clicked it and it didn't work," go ahead and vent with an, "I went to the libraries homepage, clicked the catalog link, searched "for journal of enlightenment," clicked the first result, clicked GET IT, and then nothing happened." Never worry that what you might write won't be helpful or relevant or that a librarian will say "hurry up and get to the point." Librarians are a strange breed, they love detail and context and explanations. Trust me!

Second, with a friend, if you aren't following the conversation, you'd probably just move on to a different topic, rather than type "slow down," or "I don't get it." With a librarian, it is vital that you say things like "i'm not sure what you mean" or "hold on a sec while I try that," or "i'm totally lost." If you don't, the librarian is likely to assume that you are miles ahead of him or her and completely annoyed with all the basics he or she is covering.

A third, and final difference, is that you must be extra patient with a librarian. Usually, the librarian will be quick to respond and will be able to work with you without interruption. Sometimes, however, the librarian you are chatting with may be on the phone with one person, chatting with you and two other people, wrestling with a recalcitrant stapler, and paging a colleague to help with a line of people who just walked up to the desk.  The librarian should keep you informed about what they are doing, but if they are silent for a minute or two, don't assume they have abandoned you and close the chat. Instead, take a moment to grab a snack, pet the dog, check your e-mail, or conquer a math problem. Unless there has been a rare-technical glitch, the librarian will contact you again as soon as possible.

Ready to take the plunge and chat with a librarian? It's simple. Just navigate to the K-State Libraries' homepage, click on the Ask-a-Librarian link, and click on the box on the right side of the screen and start typing. Provided that it is during Hale Library's service hours, a TMI-loving librarian will respond almost immediately.