Information Sources in Sociology

Transcription

1 Durham University Library Information Sources in Sociology Workbook Autumn 2004

2 Information Sources in Sociology Introduction Most students following this course will have attended database training within the Level 1 module Introduction to Issues in Social Research. This class is intended to? Highlight some recent changes in the functioning of the OPAC? Provide practice in a wider range of databases for tracing journal articles? Examine web searching via more sophisticated search strategies? Illustrate ways of evaluating material traced through web? Examine different types of material that are available electronically A: LIBRARY OPAC Some significant changes were made to the functioning of the Library OPAC during the summer of 2004 a) Introduction of phrase searching. In keyword search it is now possible to use quotation marks to define a phrase being sought, i.e. these words together and in this order, rather than merely carrying out a search which finds the two words in a catalogue record, but not necessarily together. This gives greater precision to your searching. 1. Carry out a search for cultural values in the OPAC. Then repeat the search with the two words defined as a phrase cultural values and note the difference in the number of records retrieved b) Search Syntax Keyword search now permits the use of a *, signifying up to 5 characters, or a?, signifying a single letter, as wildcards within a word. As truncation at the end of the stem of a word ** is needed for extensions of more than five characters. 1

3 2. How many records contain the word socialisation or the variant American spelling? 3. Can you construct a single search term that will cover material referring to Tanzania, Tanzanian, Tanzania s and the former equivalents Tanganyika, Tanganyikan, Tanganyika s? You should be able to find about 350 entries. c) Electronic Journals The separate listing of electronic journals is discontinued and they are now included in the OPAC, normally appearing together with the print equivalent if both are available from the Library, giving an improved view of the Library s coverage of each journal title. The entry for the electronic version now also provides hot links to the sites from which the electronic version is available. 4. Check the OPAC records for a) British journal of sociology b) Journal of social issues c) Australian social work d) New community B: DATABASE SEARCHING OCLC FirstSearch is a suite of databases ranging from WorldCat, which brings together over 49 million records of books, videos, tapes, sound recordings, etc., via ArticleFirst, which indexes contents pages (only - not abstracts) of over journals (of varying quality), to very highly regarded subject specific databases such as EconLit, ERIC (for Education and related subjects) and MedLine. There are some differences in the ways in which truncation, Boolean searching and wildcards operate from the search syntax in, for example, the Library OPAC, so it is important that you should study the help screens which explain this in detail. The initial information screen indicates that full text is available via a number of the FirstSearch databases. Durham has chosen not to implement this option because it would involve the expenditure of a substantial sum of money to access by this route electronic journals which are already available to us in other ways. A shortcut is provided from the top of the Library s page of bibliographic databases. 2

4 An important facility in FirstSearch is the ability to search up to three of the databases at the same time. We will conduct a literature search using advanced search and simultaneously searching three databases. At the FirstSearch home page click on the List All Databases tab. Select ArticleFirst, ERIC and PAISInternational by clicking on the tick boxes, then click on Select. Note also that the Info icon will provide you with details of the scope and coverage of each of the available databases. Now select the Advanced Search tab. 5. Look for material on social policy (as a phrase) and multiculturalism (and associated words), leaving the connector as and. 6. The preceding exercise produced more than 40 results. There may be some duplication between these. The list is arranged by database and it is possible to move to the appropriate sub-section by clicking on the database name in the records summary which precedes the listings. Examine specimen records from each of the three databases and note differences in the extent of information provided. 7. Looking at some of the records from ERIC you will see lists of descriptors which are also hot links, i.e. you can click on them to retrieve other records within the ERIC database which also have the same descriptor. 8. Mark a few records, retrieve your marked list (using the appropriate tab) and look at the options for printing and ing (near top of the screen). 9. Note that the FirstSearch databases provide a facility towards the top of the detailed record screen for linking to the University Library catalogue for a quick check as to whether the item is held locally. The advice is to use the ConneXions button which appears below this and which should provide more information and links. 10. Look at the Info screens for some of the other FirstSearch databases and carry out a search connected with your dissertation, using more than one database as in the example above. C: WEB SEARCHING Although most people will have experimented with using Google this is not the only internet search engine and it is often not used to its full potential, as made available in the Advanced Search interface. 3

5 11.Connect to the UK version of Google at and try a search for guide to the web, limiting the search to file format.ppt [Powerpoint] and to domain.ac.uk [UK Higher Education]. The first result should be a Leeds Metropolitan University presentation which is worth examination but don t spend too much time on it within the class! More material on evaluating the internet appears below. Note also that limiting Google searches to material in.pdf format can be a useful way of increasing the chances of retrieving worthwhile material, since the more frivolous material is not usually published in this format. Remember that, in the basic search, you can indicate a phrase search by enclosing the search words in quotation marks. Google Scholar - at - was released in a beta development version in November of this year. It claims to enable users to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research, but is not yet as comprehensive as some other services. Some people find that the Vivisimo search engine, at offers a useful facility in sorting its results into folders. This search engine is newer than the original Google and is still developing new features. 12. Connect to Vivisimo and try a search for D: INTERNET GATEWAYS religion and ethnicity We have had a look at two of the very many search engines which are now available. You will have noticed that some of the material which has been found by them is likely to be of very limited value for your dissertation work, because it is retrieved by fairly random matching of words or phrases and no evaluation of the sites themselves. Gateways select, describe and organize internet resources which are considered to have value and reliability. There are a large number of gateways, some of which attempt to cover the full range of academic disciplines, while others may restrict themselves to groupings such as Social Science or to individual subjects. One starting point is the Library's Web page of Subject gateways. From the Library home page follow the links Online Information Sources - Subject Gateways BUBL Link (originally Bulletin Board for Libraries) is the longest established of the UKbased gateways and covers all subjects. The link from the Library web 4

6 page goes to a page providing a hierarchical structure and also the option to look for resources by country. There is also a keyword search option. 13. Without using the keyword search can you find one or more web resources dealing with one or both of the following topics a) Women and gender in the ancient world b) Child welfare WWW Virtual Library is an American-based gateway which again has been developed over several years. Different sections are compiled by different institutions and individuals, and for some sites there is a rating (out of 10). The link from the Library page leads to a hierarchical structure and there is also a keyword search box - to search for a phrase use quotation marks. 14. Within the WWW Virtual Library use the hierarchical structure to find one or more web resources dealing with one or both of the following topics a) Psychology of religion b) Social indicators Among the more discipline-specific gateways, the most important in Social Sciences is SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway). Again the primary arrangement of SOSIG is hierarchical, with a search facility also available. 15.In SOSIG, working through the primary subject subdivisions, can you find one or more of the following full-text reports a) A report on local authority support for carers. b) An examination of the barriers to direct payments in social care c) A report on the ways in which refugee children are missing out in England We have looked at a few gateways. In the United Kingdom such gateways are normally the result of collaborative efforts. Elsewhere, in larger institutions, they can be produced by single libraries or other academic departments. Some gateways are more restricted in their coverage and this can provide a more focussed approach, particularly where the boundaries of a subject are clearcut. Within Sociology the site World Wide Web Resources for Social Workers is well-used 5

7 Depending on your dissertation topic you may also need to explore gateways in other areas. BioethicsWeb - at could well be relevant to some debates in Sociology. Inevitably, too, there are gateways to gateways. In the United Kingdom the best known is probably PINAKES, which can be accessed from the Library's Web page. E: INTERNET TUTORIALS A workshop such as this one cannot hope to cover the full range of issues, tips and techniques involved in searching the web. We have so far looked at some routes into the material which is there and will continue to examine the range of types of information which can be retrieved. Before leaving the techniques it is worth having a look at the Research Discovery Network's Virtual Training Suite, which offers a group of tutorials by subject to introduce users to internet searching. This is at The tutorials are constructed to a standard pattern and include normally a small selection of sites and tips on how to judge the value of the sites that you have found. 16. Although there isn't time within the workshop to go through any of these tutorials in detail examine one or two of them to see how they are constructed. Two other sites which you may find provide useful information on seeking and evaluating internet material are from Berkeley Cornell F: PUBLISHED TEXTS On the whole, complete commercially-published books are unlikely to be readily available in electronic format until they are out of copyright - broadly speaking 70 years after the death of the author. Very occasionally a book may be published electronically at the author's instigation or with his permission. For most Social Science textbooks this is not going to be a significant consideration. However, some classics and also a few modern books can be found. One good site for these is "The Online Books Page" from the University of Pennsylvania. This, together with a number of other sources of 6

8 standard text material, can be accessed from the Library home page via the links Online Information Services - Electronic Texts Publication on the internet of an increasing range of reports and documents from international organizations, governments and NGOs may be much more significant for those who are working on current issues or matters from the recent past. Exercise 15 touched on the way in which SOSIG brings together single reports, but the researcher requiring material from a specific organisation may well prefer to use that organisation's own web site. Such sites can be traced through gateways or search engines. If a distinctive name is involved a search engine will usually work well, provided that any search term of more than one word is enclosed in quotation marks (to ensure phrase searching). 17.The following publications are all on the web in full text. Can you find at least two of them a) The State of Food Insecurity in the World, Food & Agriculture Organization b) Children on the Brink. Unicef c) Environmental Planning - 23rd report. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution d) Implementing e-government. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) G: NEWSPAPERS Most newspapers nowadays have their own web sites, but the amount of full text information which they make freely available tends to be limited. You can begin to explore electronic versions of newspapers from the Library home page by following the links Online Information Services - News, weather - News The first section on this page provides access to the current versions of the web sites of the main U.K. broadsheets and to other news services, the second section to a number of backfiles. Among U.K. newspapers The Times is covered to 1985 by The Times Digital Archive and from 1985 to date by Infotrac: Custom Newspapers, which also covers other British broadsheets. The Times, as well as other newspapers, can also be searched in Lexis-Nexis Professional, which can be reached from the Library s Databases page. On the initial Lexis-Nexis Professional screen change the default search from "UK Newspapers" to "UK National Newspapers" and select 7

9 the titles you want by highlighting them in the right hand box. If you want to search more than one at a time hold down the control button when making selections subsequent to the first. Some searches will not display the results because there are more than 1000 of them - you should be able to control this by adjusting your date range; the menu button against "Last" can be changed to "From" or Is enabling you to be very precise in the dates you select. For European and U.S. newspapers Lexis-Nexis Executive can be used in a similar way. 18.Search for some newspaper coverage of asylum seekers during the second half of April and the first half of May 2003 [Use quotation marks to achieve a phrase search] H: OFFICIAL STATISTICS A number of the most important UK and international datasets and statistical time series are hosted by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS). The service is in four sections, Government, International, Longitudinal and Qualidata a fuller description of these divisions can be seen at Users need to register on-line with ESDS (a quick and easy process) before their first use. Within the registration process you may encounter references to ATHENS passwords. These are no longer used in Durham your normal ITS login should be entered instead. While ESDS does not include census data, the registration process does also entitle users to access this data. ESDS Census data For the U.K. the National Statistics site at includes a wide range of datasets, some of which are not yet incorporated into ESDS The "Statistics" section of SOSIG offers a large selection of links to sources of official, international, regional and local statistics. 8