Getting help:
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!
Background information:
Reference books 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.
Here
are some suggested reference books:
-
Drama Criticism
REF PN1601 .D59
-
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama
REF PN1625 .M3
-
Modern World Drama
REF PN1851 .M36
-
International Dictionary of Theatre
REF PN2035 .I49 (v. 1 - Plays, v.2 -
Playwrights)
-
Oxford Companion to the Theatre
REF PN2035 .O9 1983
-
Oxford Companion to the American Theatre
REF PN2220 .B6 1984
-
On Stage
REF PN2277 .N5 B4
-
Biographical Encyclopedia & Who's Who of the American
Theatre
REF PN2285 .R5
Why
can't I just use Wikipedia, you ask? 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.
Understanding
Scholarly Communication
Many times, your
instructors will insist that you use scholarly sources for your
papers. What does that mean? Check out this
handy dandy
chart for the details!
Here are the
basics:
Popular Magazines:
-
glossy, pretty pages
with lots of advertisements and pictures
-
written by hired
reporters for a general audience
-
short, easily read
articles
Scholarly Journals:
-
somewhat dull
looking - very few pictures or advertisements
-
written by experts
in the field and reviewed by other scholars before
publication
-
long articles with
citations and bibliographies at the end
Why should you use
the library and not just use Google to find some good websites?
Most of the time,
scholarly publications are not
available to the general public, nor are they
available for free on the internet. Individuals or
organizations (such as a library) subscribe to these
publications. Because subscriptions are expensive, many
choose to access this content through libraries.
Often, content from
scholarly journals is indexed in databases that
the library subscribes
to. The content is on the web, but it is not accessible unless
you are affiliated with the institution who is subscribing. It
isn’t the same thing as just finding a website
through a regular Google search.
Sometimes the full text of the article is available through the
database; other times it is only a citation to the article and
you will need to find the print version of the article in the
library or order the article through interlibrary loan if we
don’t subscribe to it.
So, basically what
I'm saying is that the only way you can access this scholarly
information for free is by using the library databases!
Finding articles:
We have several databases you can
use to search for journal, magazine, or newspaper articles.
Some of them only give a citation to the article, and some have
the full-text. Here is a list of databases you might want to
try. WARNING: these links will only work from on campus.
From off campus, access databases through
Research Port.
-
Academic Search Premier
- a multidisciplinary database from EBSCO with a mix of
scholarly and popular resources, a lot of full-text and Find
It links when there is no full-text available
-
JSTOR
- scholarly
full-text resources; the newest documents are 3-5 years old.
-
MLA Bibliography
- covers literature,
language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory &
criticism, and the dramatic arts.
-
Literature Resource Center - includes
literary criticism, biographies, and bibliographies.
-
Humanities International -
provides full text of hundreds of journals, books and other
published sources in Humanities fields.
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!!!
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.
Websites for the in-class activity:
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
Use this guide to
help you cite your work, and remember librarians are good at
answering citation questions as well!
http://www.salisbury.edu/library/citation/index.html
