Social Sciences Librarian

Request Instruction Session with the Social Sciences Librarian

Examples of information that can be presented:

Library Research Strategy & Reference Sources

• Includes: Sample search strategy
• Examples of subject-specific reference works
• How to find scholarly books in SIUE Catalog, I-Share, & WorldCat
• Includes: Subject (Library of Congress), Keyword, Author searching
• Interpreting results lists
• Requesting books from other libraries via I-Share & ILLiad

How to find scholarly journal articles in a given discipline.

• Includes: Difference between scholarly, popular, professional/trade publications.
• Peer-reviewed journals.
• How to recognize a scholarly journal/article.
• Identifying primary research articles.
• Keyword, subject, author searching in two subject-specific databases
• Interpreting results lists.
• Using SFX to find article online.
• Using SIUE Catalog to find journals in print & microform.

Finding current newspaper articles

• Includes: Keyword searching in ProQuest Newsstand, EBSCO
• Newspaper Source, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

Finding historical newspapers

• Includes: Reference works that describe historical newspapers
• Historical New York Times database
• Other historical newspapers online (African American
• Newspapers, Pennsylvania Gazette)
• Print indexes to newspapers
• Finding local community newspapers (historical)
• Illinois Newspaper Project and National Newspaper Project
• Requesting newspapers on microfilm via ILLiad.

Finding Primary Sources for historical research

• Might include:
• Newspapers (see above)
• Popular magazines (HarpWeek, Historical Readers Guide, Poole’s Index)
• Speeches
• Archives USA database & print guides to collections
• Catalogs (I-Share & WorldCat)
• Local history sources (e.g. city directories, court records, IRAD Depositories)
• U. S. Government Sources (with U. S. Documents Librarian)
• Recommended web sites
• Searching Google for historical documents and images

Finding Legal Resources

• Might include:
• Tracing legislation in Illinois (General Assembly web site, print, and microfiche sources)
• Tracing federal legislation (Thomas, Congressional Quarterly Weekly, etc.)
• Finding codes and regulations (Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe)
• Finding court decisions (Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe)
• Finding articles in law reviews (Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe)

Searching for biographical information (current or historical)

Advanced searching in Google

Advanced searching in Google Scholar

Citation styles; avoiding plagiarism; introduction to RefWorks