Search Methods

The search methods I use depend on the research topic I am working on. I use a standard procedure for most topics by beginning with the university libraries own catalog, fondly known as MNCAT Plus.The university catalog has undergone so much transformation such that it is now possible to search across various information resources such as the university's catalog, the various indexes or databases. This enhancement allows one to search for books, journal articles and other formats bearing information. The search interface consists of a dialog box in which you type your query and click the radio button adjacent to the dialog box called "GO". Clicking the aforementioned button yields a list of results in the form of citations to various resources, journal articles, books etc. This tool then allows you to sort these results according some kind of relevance critera, or date of publication, whether ascending or descending. MNCAT further gives you various options to narrow your search results or broaden your search. You can go on to do a more skillful search by clicking the advance mode of searching. Here you will encounter dialog boxes that allow you to search your query terms in specific fields of the bibliographic information record e.g. title, subject headings etc. MNCAt also allows you to restrict your search to specific formats e.g DVDs, journal atricles etc. It also provides you with links to electronic versions of books articles etc. This is achieved by simply clicking a link called "Get it".
Other times I go directly to the databases my favorites being Academic Source Premier and Business Source Premier. Again I find the interface of these two indexes to be very user friendly, there is no clutter around the dialog boxes, it starts you off with one dialog box but if you are inclined to start off with a more detailed search 3 dialog boxes with similar attributes like the ones used by MNCAT are made available by once again hitting the advanced button. The results are displayed in a tidy format that is easy to understand and you once again have the privilege of sorting by date, relevance etc.. You can manipulate your result to narrower subtopics of your research topic. You can also access many other supporting keywords e.g synonyms. You have the option of using natural language or vocabulary controlled terms. Not to be downplayed is the fact that you may also use library searcher's enhancement tools such as the boolean search facility, truncations, phrase searching etc.

The validity of the sources of information you acquire can be based on the database you use. You can verify author informatin using authority records, verify if others have quoted his or her work.I will subscribe to using RSS feeds because several database vendors and sources are using them they are a convenient way of getting updated content. For instance the medline database uses RSS feeds, so does the reference tool Refworks.