14/11/2006

Today, Claire had organised a session of ‘Accessing on-line Journals’ with Emily from the Didsbury Library. I found it extremely helpful and it will definitely benefit me in the researching of my Independent Study. Although there were handouts given out, below are a few points I took away from the session:

• Select key words from working title. For example, Language and Policy: An Investigation into the construction of Nursery Provision (the words in bold, I would choose as my key words).
• Think of different words that mean the same thing. For example, Language could be vocabulary or meaning. Nursery Provision could be childcare or education etc.
• Think about different endings: Truncation. For example, Management will only look for articles containing the word management. Therefore use the stem ‘manag’ and then place an asterisk (*) this will then look for all articles containing ‘manag’ and all its endings.
• Three or four searches may need to be carried out on different databases to find relevant journals.
• It is easier to access when on a MMU campus.
• Check out over subjects as well as Communications as there could be other relevant articles in their databases. For example. Psychology, Social Work etc.
  
  How to access the Journals within MMU:
  
  Library – Resources by Subjects or Databases by title (if you know which database you want to use) – Communications – Choose database Eg/ Expanded Academic ASAP International – Advanced Search
  
  The Find It button will search Manchester Metropolitan University to see if a hard copy is available in the library.
  
  I found Emily to be very easy to talk to and approachable, this helps as if I am struggling at anytime in the library; I know that support is there. Thank you Claire!!!