Course-Related Web Page Template

RESEARCH TOOL LINKS

Boolean Searching
(from University at Albany Libraries)

Evaluating Resources
(from Milner Library at Illinois State U.)

Types of Resources
(from Bowling Green State U. Libraries)

Primary vs. Secondary Sources (from Bowling Green State Libraries)

Plagiarism: How to Avoid It (from Indiana University at Bloomington)


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COURSE-RELATED RESEARCH INSTRUCTION GUIDE

SOC 331 -- Sociology of Organizations

Course Instructor: Dr. Lynda Ames
Session Librarian: Tim Hartnett
Session Date: September 26, 2001

FINDING INFORMATION ON ORGANIZATIONS

REFERENCE SOURCES (for background and summary information)

Associations Unlimited
The online version of Encyclopedia of Associations (Ref. Desk HS17 .G334 2001). Provides brief profiles of organizations including directory information that lists their web site. May also be useful for finding counter organizations.

Federal Wed Locator (with Quick Jumps to the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches)
Good for finding U.S. federal agency web sites.

FULL-TEXT PERIODICALS ONLINE

IAC Searchbank (aka InfoTrac -- includes two files)
Indexes a wide variety of periodicals. Full-text of many articles available. Can limit to refereed (i.e. scholarly) articles.

EBSCO MasterFILE Select
Full-text for 765 periodicals covering many subjects including general reference, business, and health. Can limit to refereed (i.e. scholarly) articles. User ID: nysl Password: ebsco

LEXIS-NEXIS (choose "News" or "Business" links)
Full-text access to over 7,000 news, business, and legal sources. Very current but generally not scholarly sources.

Wilson Omnifile
Full-text access to hundreds of scholarly journals. Covers from 1994 to present.

ScienceDirect --
Full-text of 700 scientific, business, and medical, and social sciences journals from Elsevier publishing. Very scholarly.

KEY PERIODICAL DATABASES (not full-text)

Sociological Abstracts
Provides access to the latest research in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Includes citations since 1963 (and abstracts since 1974) for articles in over 1,500 journals. Draws information from an international selection of journals, serials, conference papers, books, and dissertations

Public Affairs Information Service
Contains more than 480,000 records bibliographic records with brief, descriptive abstracts of periodical articles, books, hearings, reports, gray literature, government publications, Internet resources, and other publications from 120 countries since 1972.

Social Sciences Abstracts
Indexes 550 major social science journals from 1983 to present (abstracts since 1994).

Criminal Justice Abstracts
Indexes major journals related to criminal justice since 1968.

The following links provide menus of the many other databases available through Feinberg Library's Electronic Search Services (ESS).

Electronic Search Services - Alphabetical (by Database Name)
Electronic Search Services - Subject (of Database Scope)
Electronic Search Services - Full-Text Databases (Databases that include the full-text of articles)

BOOKS (for greater detail and analysis)

Within Feinberg Library:

a. Library Catalog (text version -- login as opac)
b. Library Catalog (web version)

Beyond Feinberg Library:

WorldCat (about)

Search Tips:

a. start with specific organization name (e.g. World Trade Organization)
b. broaden to topic as necessary (e.g. International Trade)

WEB SEARCH ENGINES

Google -- "Google's index, comprised of more than 1 billion URLs, is the first of its kind and represents the most comprehensive collection of the most useful web pages on the Internet." Includes the very useful Google Web Directory.

Direct Hit -- "By analyzing the activity of millions of previous Internet searchers, Direct Hit search technology determines the most relevant sites for your search request."

Northern Light -- "[D]eliver[s] accurate, relevant results from the Web and [its] Special Collection™ of over 7100 respected full-text publications not otherwise available to Web searchers, which are organized into Custom Search Folders™ so that users don't have to waste time weeding through useless information."

This page created by: Tim Hartnett - tim.hartnett@plattsburgh.edu
Last Updated: September 25, 2001