Friday, March 23, 2007

ENG 121 - New Brunswick

It was great to meet all of you yesterday!

A reminder of some of the sites we reviewed:

The Assignment Calculator (from the University of Minnesota Libraries) for help in determining your research timeline.

The Best Search Tools chart from Infopeople. Provides an overview of the features of major search engines, and includes two of my favorite internet directories: Librarian's Index to the Internet and Infomine. Please remember these are very small databases compared to Google, but you can find one or two credible/scholarly/important websites in most subject areas.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries can help you understand your topic, provide insight into an issue you might want to explore and identify terms that may help in your searches. Try Facts on File for history, literature, health and science encyclopedias and other reference sources. Use Gale Virtual Reference Library for health/medicine; culture; child and family psychology and film. Or use a general encyclopedia like Britannica Online.

To locate books, videos, DVDs available at MCC, use our catalog MIDAS. Check Worldcat for items we do not own (use the Interlibrary Loan forms to request the books, videos, DVDs). Remember that you can also check the e-book collections PsycBooks and History e-Books (if your topic is related to those subject areas.)

For articles from newspapers, check Lexis-Nexis, Historical New York Times (1851-2003), and ABI Inform (for Wall Street Journal).

Academic Search Premier is a general database (covering many different subject areas) Use it to search for journals and magazines.

There are subject-specific databases such as: PsycInfo (psychology); Science Direct (science & medicine); ABI Inform and Business Source Premier (business, management & accounting); Lexis-Nexis- Legal Research (law and law-related topics) and others available on the Library's Magazines, Journals and Newspapers page.

Reference Librarians are here to help!
In New Brunswick, during the Spring 2007 semester, a Reference Librarian is available on Wednesday nights from 6PM-9PM.
Otherwise:
Stop by the Reference Desk on the Edison campus (we're open 73 hours a week, 7 days a week.)
Call us at 732 906-2561
Email us at refmcclibrary@yahoo.com
or
Post a question on this Blog.

Good Luck with your research projects!