Trexler Library - Library Instruction Handout

Academic Support Tutors

Need help with your research? Contact:

Kelly Cannon
Humanities Librarian
x3602
kcannon@muhlenberg.edu

David Oldenkamp
Social Science Librarian
x3552
oldenkamp@muhlenberg.edu

Martha Stevenson
Science Librarian
x3602
msteven@muhlenberg.edu

Finding books (and government documents)

To locate books in any other library, search in WorldCat; follow the path Trexler Library Home PageFinding BooksWorldCat. WorldCat is a powerful search tool for books on any subject, as catalogued at any of hundreds of libraries in the U.S. and abroad.

Interlibrary loan via WorldCat

Most books in WorldCat can be ordered without charge to students through a process called interlibrary loan. To request a book, while viewing the book record in WorldCat, click on the icon marked "ILL," fill out the required fields, and submit.

Periodical (journal) articles via periodical indexes

Periodical databases can be located by following the path Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding ArticlesDatabases & IndexesListed Alphabetically. Subscribed to by Muhlenberg College for a substantial fee, these databases can be accessed on campus without restriction, or off campus with your name and student ID number.

Academic Search Premier is a good starting place for articles, and includes the full text from about 3000 journals. Limit to "peer reviewed" to find only scholarly articles. Back issues of journals begin as early as 1990. Recent issues may not be included yet, due to publisher agreement. Journals held in Trexler Library are marked accordingly.

Similarly, Omnifile will retrieve a mixture of popular magazines and scholarly journals. Can be limited to "peer review."

Subject-specialty indexes: most recommended for each subject . . .

Journal articles not found in Trexler Library can be ordered by following this path: Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding ArticlesGetting a Copy of an Article.

To check to see if you have access to the full text of a specific journal, whether online or in print, follow this path: Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Finding ArticlesJournal Locator.

Web search engines and directories

Google (http://www.google.com)
Non-selective. One of the largest web crawlers.

HotBot (http://www.hotbot.com)
Non-selective. One of the largest web crawlers. Advanced search offers more precision than Google.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com)
Selective. A web crawler that looks only for academic content, especially unpublished or informally published (grey or working) papers. Published, peer-reviewed items may not be full text, but are abstracted and generally available through interlibrary loan.

Looksmart (http://search.looksmart.com/)
More selective. A commercial search engine plus a directory. Items in the directory are selected for their relevance and quality, and are described in a brief abstract.

Librarian's Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/)
Highly selective. One of the most restricted search engines/directories. Both scholarly and popular, but all are deemed important based on assessment by a team of California public librarians. All entries are accompanied by paragraph-length descriptions.

Trexler Library Home Page (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library)Research HelpCitation Guides