Hi, I'm Krista Knapp, your friendly reference/instructional librarian, and I'm here to help you!
You can email me at kmknapp@salisbury.edu or kristaknapp@gmail.com. Trust me, you WANT to be friends with a librarian. Not only are we extraordinarily cool, but we're here to help you with your research, and we actually enjoy doing it, as crazy as that sounds! Visit my website for more information about me: http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~kmknapp/

When I'm not teaching classes or rushing off to meetings, you can find me in my office in Blackwell Library 129 or at the research services desk. My hours on the desk are Mondays 10am-12pm, Tuesdays 6pm-10pm, Wednesdays 12pm-2pm, Thursdays 10am-12pm, and Fridays 8am-10am. Stop by and say hi!

You can also get help 24 hours a day/7 days a week through the Maryland AskUsNow chat reference service: http://askusnow.info/

Background information:

Reference sources are a good place to start your research.
What is a reference source? A reference source is something you consult for a specific piece of information, not something you read from cover to cover. Reference sources include encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, thesauri, atlases, almanacs, directories, etc. Blackwell Library's reference collection is located on the main floor. Consult the
Library of Congress Classification outline to see the call number area for your topic.

Here are some suggestions:

World Almanac REF AY67.N5 W7

Encyclopedia of Religion REF BL31 .E46

Current Biography REF CT100.C8 (published annually since 1940)

Native America in the 20th Century REF E76.2 .N36 1994

Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the US REF E184.S75 O97 2005

African American Encyclopedia REF E185 .A253 2001

Dictionary of American History REF E174.D52 1976

Statistical Record of Black America REF E185.5.S83

Countries and Their Cultures REF GN307 .C68 2001

Statistical Abstract of the US REF HA202.U52

American Salaries and Wages Survey REF HD4973.A67

Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual History in America
REF HQ76.3 .U5 E53

Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice REF HV6017.E52

Criminal Justice Statistics Sourcebook REF HV7245.N370

West Encyclopedia of American law REF KF154.W47 1992

Why can't I just use Wikipedia?
Well, anybody and their brother can get on Wikipedia and write whatever they want, for starters! Plus, there are tons of more reliable, authoritative sources out there for you to use. And, I just can't resist sharing my favorite Colbert Report clip about the downfalls of Wikipedia. View it here (and please ignore the brief commercial at the beginning!):

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=72347

Finding books:

Find books in Blackwell Library using our online library catalog. Books in our library are arranged using Library of Congress Classification. The books you can check out are located on the second floor of the library. If you ever have trouble finding a book you want, PLEASE ask for help at the Research Desk!

You can also borrow books from any of the USMAI affiliations by selecting the "choose campus" link at the top of the catalog page and then selecting "USMAI All Campuses." When you find a book you want that is not in Blackwell, click the "request" button and use your ID number to login. You can have the book delivered to Blackwell within 3 or 4 days.

Finding articles:

Ask yourself if you need scholarly sources or popular sources for your assignment. Many times, your professor will insist on scholarly sources. What does that mean? Find out using this handy-dandy chart from Duke Libraries.

Here are some databases that may be useful for your presentations:

Newspapers:

Lexis-Nexis Academic - a great source for full-text world news and legal information, including the fulltext of federal and state court cases.
National Newspapers - a source of U.S. news from major papers including The New York Times and The Washington Post - also includes the Baltimore Sun.
Daily Times - Salisbury/Delmarva's local newspaper.
SU News and Publications

Magazines and Journals

Multidisciplinary databases

Academic Search Complete - a multidisciplinary database containing both scholarly and popular sources, many of which have full-text available. ASP is a good place to start your research. Use the FindIt button to locate articles that are not available full-text.
JSTOR Arts & Sciences - a huge, wonderful database of scholarly communication from a wide variety of disciplines. All of these sources are full-text, but the newest documents are 3-5 years old.
MasterFILE Premier - mostly fulltext articles from general and popular magazines.

Subject-specific databases:

CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online) - full text theory, research, and case studies on international affairs.
Contemporary Women's Issues - issues focusing on health and human rights.
CQ Weekly - Congressional Quarterly Weekly - your opportunity to find out what's going on in Congress!
ERIC - "Education Resources Information Center," a database with full text education articles and ERIC documents as well as Find It links to non-full text resources.
Business Source Premier - company, industry, business information with the familiar EBSCO interface.
Regional Business News - like Business Source Premier but focused on regional companies instead of national and international
Health Source: Consumer Edition - health and related topics.
Social Sciences Abstracts - articles and citations for interdisciplinary fields such as addiction studies, anthropology, corrections, economics, gender studies, gerontology, minority studies, political sciences, psychology, sociology, and more

WHAT DOES THAT CUTE LITTLE FIND IT BUTTON DO, ANYWAY?

It's a bit like magic, really. The Find It button does three things:

Looks in all of our databases to see if the document you want is available full-text in another of our databases. If so, it links you to it!
Links you to the library catalog when we have the item you want in print or microform.
Links you to ILLiad (interlibrary loan) so you can borrow the item from another library if we don't have access electronically or in print.

The Find It button is YOUR FRIEND!!!

You can also use the Citation Linker, another fabulously cool tool. It is useful when you are reading an article and it cites another article that looks like it would be super useful for your research. You plug in the citation information for that article and can find out how to access it, whether it be electronically, physically in the library, or through Interlibrary Loan. It works the same way as Find It, but you don't have to be in a database.

Learn more about the Citation Linker!

Statistics/Government Information

Bureau of Labor Statistics - for statistics on work/employment/unemployment
American FactFinder - population, housing, economic and geographic data
FedStats - gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies
National Center for Education Statistics - you guessed it, education statistics!
Princeton University Survey Research Center - a comprehensive guide to online sources of public opinion surveys, market research, and statistical data.
Statistical Sources - US Government statistical sources through Vanderbilt University.
Statistical Abstract of the United States (2007 version)
COMAR Online - Maryland Law
Government Resources on the Web
Uniform Crime Reports - from the FBI

Evaluating Websites:

Always make sure that internet resources are appropriate for your project.
Look at the criteria listed on this website: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

If you have questions about the appropriateness of a website, please check with your professor or a librarian. Here are some that I suggest for your projects in this course:

American Memory - historical collections by the Library of Congress

Bartleby.com - good general reference source: definitions, quotations, biography, history, anatomy, bible, world facts, etc.

Council on Foreign Relations - nonpartisan, independent resource for current events, viewable by topic or region

Country Studies / Area Handbook - information collected by government agencies, particularly the CIA

Journalism Resources -links to media law, gender and race issues, web publication, teaching resources, employment, citation guides, plus other information; a good selection, well-organized.

Journalism Resources - from the University of Iowa

LII.org : Ready Reference & Quick Facts collection - all sorts of brief information - also can use LII.org to find reputable websites on a variety of topics selected by librarians

National Atlas of the United States - online interactive map database

Stateline - independent publisher of state-level issues; covers all states and updated every weekday

US Newspaper Links - access to dozens of newspaper web sites around the U.S.

Citing your work:

Of course you want to make sure you give proper credit to any source that you use to write your papers, whether you directly quote or paraphrase. This guide helps students understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it: http://www.salisbury.edu/library/plagiarism/student.html

Here is a guide that should help you cite your work:
http://www.salisbury.edu/library/citation/index.html

This page was created on 2/15/2008. Email Krista Knapp with questions or comments.