Information Literacy, Search
Strategies & Catalog Instruction
Frederic Murray
Assistant Professor
MLIS, University of British Columbia
BA, Political Science, University of Iowa
Instructional Services Librarian
Al Harris Library
frederic.murray@swosu.edu
Information Literacy
• It is a set of abilities requiring
individuals to recognize when
information is needed and have the
ability to locate, evaluate, and use
effectively the needed information.
Library Instruction in the
Information Age
• A single current newspaper contains more
written and visual information than the
average person in the 17th Century was
likely to come across in their entire lifetime.
There are many areas of literacy that all add
up to Information Literacy: Cultural, Visual,
Media, Network, Computer, Traditional
Alphabetic Literacy, and Library Instruction.
Did You Know….
Educational Goals for 21st Century
1. Teach Students to be self-directed &
understand how to organize more &
more of their own learning.
2. Teach our students the importance of
global communication.
3. Teach our students to deal with
massive amounts of information.
Library Instruction in the
Information Age
• New Search Strategies are required
• Critical evaluation is more important
than ever
• Hi-Tech Research
Catalogs, Databases, & Search Engines
• A comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps,
and other materials in a given collection.
• A large, regularly updated file of digitized information
related to a specific subject or field.
• Computer software designed to help the user locate
information available at sites on the World Wide Web
by selecting categories from a hierarchical directory of
subjects (example: Yahoo!) or by entering
appropriate keywords or phrases (Google).
Search Techniques
• Keyword
• Basic Boolean
Identifying Keywords
• Identify the significant terms and
concepts that describe your topic from
your thesis statement or research
question.
• These terms will become the key for
searching catalogs, databases and
search engines for information about
your subject.
Thesis Statement
Advances in digital communication
have made online social networks an
integral part of daily life.
Thesis Statement
Advances in digital communication
have made online social networks an
integral part of daily life.
How do I pick the right keywords?
• Here is an example of a visual word
search tool:
– Visuwords
– Use Subject Headings
– Use the suggestions made in the
databases
– Use keywords provided by abstracts
Keyword Phrases
• Single concept, multiple words
• Some electronic resources require keyword
phrases be enclosed with punctuation
– Quotation marks – SWOSU Catalog
– Parenthesis
Thesis Statement
Advances in digital communication
have made online social networks an
integral part of daily life.
Boolean
• AND = Narrow
• OR = Expand
• NOT = Exclude
Boolean Operators
• Connect keywords only
• Must be placed between keywords
• AND
– Narrows your search
• OR
– Expands your search with synonymous terms
• NOT
– Excludes words from your search
– If used too much, it can work against you!
Truncation (Wildcards)
• Non-universal
symbols used in
searching
• Common symbols:
+*?
• Used with a root
word
• Used to mark
essential or
important terms
Truncation (Wildcards)
• Root Word- looks for multiple
endings of a word, in this case it takes
the place of ‘OR’
– jump?
– jump, jumps, jumping, jumper, jumpers
– rope and jumping or jumps or jump
– rope and jump?
Truncation (Wildcards)
• + or * are used to mark important or
essential terms
• i.e. death penalty +innocence
death penalty +race
death penalty +statistics
Class Exercise
• Keyword Building Exercise
Topic: Global Warming
• Thesaurus.com
• Visuwords
Global Warming
Policy
Science
Business
Environment
Global
Atmosphere
Antarctica
Warming
Ozone
Catalog: Finding books
• Relevance
• Keyword searching with Boolean
operators
• Limiters/Filters
• Subject searching (hyperlinks)
SWOSU Catalog
Dewey
• All of human
knowledge is
broken into Ten
Major Categories
Open WorldCat
E-Books: Ebrary/Netbook
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24/7
Full Text Searching*
Highlight Markup
Note Taking
Changeable Font Size
Online Bookshelf
• Multiplicity of Use
Exercise
• Catalog worksheet
– SWOSU
– WorldCat
– Ebrary
Questions?
• Contact me:
– Frederic Murray
• 774-7113
• frederic.murray@swosu.edu
Thanks!