Credo: New Reference Database at Lane Library

Lane Library is now offering Credo, a reference database of more than 600 full text reference works from over fifteen disciplines:
Art, Business, Food & Beverage, General Reference, Geography, History, Language, Law, Literature, Medicine, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Science, Social Sciences, Technology

This is a great place to start your research, where you can get a quick overview of a topic rather than sorting through questionable results from Google or wondering if a Wikipedia entry had been recently altered by a prankster. Credo also offers mind maps, which assist in brainstorming related topics.
 (Below: Mind map for Hank Aaron)

 

After getting background information on a topic, Credo seamlessly connects you to academic databases and other information sources by placing links to the left of your search results. Clicking on one of these links will run the same keyword search in the selected source.

 

Credo is listed among the databases on the Lane Library homepage.

Google-fu!

We recently had a "Google Advanced" workshop at the library. We could have also called it "Google-fu" - as wiktionary defines it: "Skill in using search engines (especially) Google to quickly find useful information on the Internet." Thanks to everyone who came out! It was perhaps one of our best attended workshops and for good reason - we all use search engines, usually google, many times a day. The search functions we discussed in the class allow you to search more quickly and with more accuracy. Click through the class Prezi below to find out what beginner, intermediate, and advanced googlers should be able to do:

Here are my favorite tricks -

• Site:  Searches within a domain. Example, “site:harvard.edu” or “site:gov”. Extremely helpful when you need government statistics or data, or just want academic results (site:edu). This is an example of what I would enter into the search box - "wi poverty statistics site:gov"
• ~ Finds synonyms of your term and searches with them too. "recipe Halloween ~dessert” searches for the word dessert and cookies, cakes, candy, etc.
• .. Number or publication date range, example: “$1..$5” or “1994..1998”. For instance, if I wanted to buy a vest that costs between $20 and $40, I would enter "vest $20..$40"
• In Google Images, click and drag an image file from your computer into the search box to search or images like it. 
• Use “ctrl + f” to find words on a page. Only 10% of users know this very useful and time-saving trick. Try it now! Hold down the "ctrl" and "f" keys at the same time ("command" and "f" on Apples). A small search box will appear in your browser, type in "10%" and it will highlight that phrase on this bullet point.

Graphic by HackCollege.com

For more information on Advanced Google functions, be sure to read through the above graphic and check out these links:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en

http://www.google.com/help/features.html

Top six tips for using the new library catalog

Your Account

Logging in to your library account allows you to renew books, place holds, create lists, view your search history, and more. Your account has already been created, so all you need to do is log in with the first part of your Ripon email name (everything before the @ sign) and your email password.

Lists

The list function provides a way to save lists of items for future reference, or to share lists with others. Once you've created a list, you can print, email, or link to it.

Cart

The cart is a similar function to lists.  With the cart, you can collect lists of books and other items to print or email.  The difference between Lists and the Cart is that items in the cart won't be saved in the catalog for future use after you have closed the catalog.

Tags

Tags in the library catalog work just like Twitter hashtags or tags on a blog post. Anyone who is logged in can tag an item, and clicking on a tag brings up a list of everything with that tag.

Virtual Shelf Browser

Academic libraries arrange their bookshelves based on the topic of the book, so browsing the shelf can be a good way to find related items. The library catalog mimics this experience: from the record for an item, click on the “Browse Shelf” link next to the call number to browse a virtual bookshelf.

RSS

If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to an RSS feed for any search you run in the catalog. For instance, the “New Books” list on the main page of the catalog pulls from an RSS feed based on a search for all books. You could do something similar to track new films, or new books on a particular subject. 

Have questions or suggestions about the new catalog? Leave a comment below, or email library AT ripon.edu.