A General Research Guide

I Finding Books I Finding Articles I Finding Web Sites I
I Web Evaluation I Citing Resources I

Searching the Library Catalog for Books

To find a book, search the Library's Online Catalog.  The following are the various ways of searching the online catalog.

• Basic Search: Allows you to search by Keyword, Author, Title, Call Number, and Library of Congress Subject Heading. Set limits if you are looking for books published in the last 10 years or video recordings.
• Keyword Search: Searches the entire record of the materials in the OCC Library collection. Remember to place phrases between quotation marks.
• Subject Search: Searches the Library of Congress Subject Headings. A simple search will bring you to the subject heading index that you can browse.
• Advanced Search: Allows you to search any word(s), phrase(s), and/or name(s) using drop down menus to select specific fields and search operators (AND, OR, NOT). Remember to set limits before you conduct your search.

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Searching Electronic Resources for Articles and eBooks

	Off-Campus Access: Log in to MyOCC or Blackboard to access these resources off-campus. If you are having problems logging in, please go the MyOCC Username & Password page or call MyOCC Technical Support at (714) 432-5072.

General Resources

Britannica Online – Dictionary, encyclopedia and more in full-text. Good for definitions, general overviews, and current news.

eBooks - NetLibrary provides electronic full-text copies of over 3,000 published print materials.

Expanded Academic – Magazines and journals on all topics with most articles available in full-text.

Lexis-Nexis Academic – Magazines, journals, and newspapers from legal, business, medical, and government sources. Most articles are available in full-text.

Los Angeles Times – Newspaper with full-text articles.

Specialized Resources

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center – Essays from books, periodical articles, statistics, primary sources, images, and Web links in full-text.

CQ Researcher – A weekly publication of government documents on major current events and controversial issues in full-text. Provides summaries, pro/con arguments, outlook, chronology, and bibliographies.

Literature Resource Center – Literary biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses in full-text. Search by author, title, genre, literary movement, or theme.

Health and Wellness Resource Center – Health, wellness, and medical reference books, periodical articles, and Web links.

Health Reference Center Academic – Health, wellness, and medical magazine and scholarly journal articles. Can limit search to scholarly journals. Most articles are available in full-text.

PsycINFO – Psychological scholarly literature abstracts. To access full-text articles, check with the OCC Periodicals List in the library to see if OCC Library carries the journal in print or microfilm for the specific date of the article.

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Searching the Internet for Web Sites

Web Site Directories
A directory is a good information source to use when you have only a general idea of the type of Web sites you would like to find.

Yahoo - This site is a subject heirarchy by subjects.

Librarians’ Index to the Internet - This site was developed by librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to Internet resources. The Index is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 14,000 Internet resources that have been selected and evaluated by librarians.

DMOZ Open Directory Project – This human-edited directory of the Web breaks the topics into sub-topics and also provides “see also” references. Try the pathway: Health > Nutrition.

Search Engines
A search engine is a good information source to use when you have specific Web sites that you are interested in accessing.

Google - This Web site allows you to search on your topic using keywords. 

Ask.com – Provides suggestions for narrowing and expanding your search. Click binoculars to preview the Web page.

Clusty.com – Groups similar results into clusters by topic, domain, and source. Use to help refine your search results.

Gigablast.com – Breaks down search results into categories by percentage of total results. Each result also includes its pathway in the Gigablast directory of Web sites, which will link you to all other sites in that category.

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Web Evaluation

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages
A quick and useful guide to help you evaluate the Web pages you find for accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. From Jim Kapoun’s article "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction” originally published in the July/August 1998 issue of C&RL News on pages 522-523.

Evaluate Web Pages Tutorial
An online tutorial from the Wolfgram Memorial Library at Widener University, Pennsylvania. Note: You will need to install FLASH plug in order to view the tutorial.

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Citing Sources

Citation Styles – A guide to citing Internet sources using the MLA, APA, and other formats. From Bedford/St. Martin’s site Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.

Guides to Cite It! – Provides style guides for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and others. From the University of Georgia Libraries.

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(jk 4/07)