The library is a system. It contains tools. And with any set of tools, the results you get depend on the skills of the user! Here is where you can learn how to make the system work quickly and easily for you.

You will learn:

• how to focus in on your research topic
  
• how to decide where to look
  
• how to get the item
  
• when to ask for help

Are you like this?

A quick poll at the University of Texas reveals some clues about many students’ research habits:

• To start a research paper,
  51% look for web sites
  25% look for articles
  22% look for books
  
  
• Time spent selecting a source
  42% spend less than 5 minutes
  
  
• To decide if information is factual
  54% verify facts in another source
  37% assume it’s probably true
  7% respect author’s expertise

[Source: TILT: Texas Information Literacy Tutorial, http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu]

Let us give you some tips for doing a better job and more easily!

Three things about every library you should know

1. The Library is people and services. Ask a librarian for help!
2. The library is more than just books in a building
   Part of a library is within the building, and part of it is online--usable from just about anywhere.
   1. The world of online sources is constantly expanding. It includes:
      • library catalogs
        … use to find books and videos
      • online article & reference databases
        ... use to find articles. Includes encyclopedias, periodical indexes and full text resources that the Library subscribes to.
      • Internet resources
        ... Web search tools available to everyone.
   2. What is not online?
      • the vast majority of books, videos, CDs
      • many, many magazines & research journals, especially pre-1990 items
      • extensive, specialized reference sources
      • paper indexes to articles
3. Information in a library is organized systematically.
   What if you’ve come to the Library to find a book. Instead of finding books neatly on the shelves, they’re sitting in boxes piled everywhere. Even worse, the boxes don’t have labels to say what is inside. It would be impossible to find anything.
   Organization helps make things easier to find.
   • Librarians catalog and classify books to make them easier to find.
   • Article databases allow you to search for particular newspaper, journal and popular magazine articles.
   • The Library web site gathers for you—in a logical way—many of these resources.

Don’t be shy. Check with a librarian or your instructor if you are new to the research process! See you at the reference desk in the Library or call us at 682-1611, x7251.

Acknowledgements

Many, many websites were reviewed in the developing of this project. For use of their source material, thanks goes to:

University of Texas System, TILT: Texas Information Literacy Tutorial
     http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu

University of Minnesota Libraries, Quickstudy
     http://tutorial.lib.umn.edu

University of California, Berkeley Teaching Library
     http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet

Duke University Libraries, Guide to Library Research
     http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/home.htm

For more information or questions please contact:
Library Reference Desk
rbutler@occc.edu
(405) 682-1611, Ext. 7251