|
Library Research Guide |
 |
|
Reference Librarians
Jenna Freedman, Heidi
Winston, Karen Dobrusky and Lois Coleman |
Barnard Library | Columbia
University Libraries
Finding Books
| Finding Articles |
Subject
Guides
Need Help With Your
Research?
You are most welcome
to visit the reference desk (hours)
on the second floor of Barnard Library, or contact the reference librarians:
Request a
one-on-one consultation with a Barnard librarian if you have an
in-depth research need.
Getting
Started: Reference Works
Encyclopedias, dictionaries and
other reference books are useful for an overview of a topic and for background
information to get you started. Always check the bibliographies for books and
articles to look at next.
General
reference works available online (if you are off campus, they
are only accessible with a CUID/UNI):
Search the
Columbia Libraries
Databases list for more reference sources online.
These general
reference books are in the Barnard Library reference
area on the second floor (dictionaries are shelved separately from the rest of the
Ps):
- American
Heritage Dictionary: PN6081 .A623
- Chicago Manual of Style: Z253 .U69
- Roget's
Thesaurus: PE1591 .B35
- Encyclopedia
Americana: AE5 .E333
- A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses,
and Dissertations / Kate Turabian: LB2369 .T8
- MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers:
LB2369 .G53
- Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association: BF76.7 .P83
- World Almanac:
AY67 .W89
For reference
books on specific subjects, browse the shelves in the reference area.
The
Library of Congress
Classification System is used for reference books at Barnard
Library as well as for
the circulating collection, and gives the main call
numbers you should browse for each subject area.
Library Catalogs
for
finding books, DVDs, CDs, journals (but not articles in
journals), microfilm, etc.
CLIO (Columbia
Libraries Information Online)
-
CLIO includes
the holdings of Columbia libraries and Barnard Library, as well as those of the Health
Sciences Library and Union Theological Seminary libraries.
- If searching
for a known item, start with a title search: leave off the initial
article (the, der, un, etc.).
- If not
searching for a known item, start with a keyword search using
terms relating to your topic: use quotes for a phrase, and ? for
truncation (to find variant endings of a word).
- Or search by
author, authorized Library of Congress subject, ISBN, etc.
- To limit to
books in Barnard Library: use the Pre-Select Limits or Post Limits
options.
WorldCat
- Search
WorldCat, a composite of many libraries' catalogs,
if you do not find what you are looking for in CLIO.
- After finding items that look useful, use
Borrow Direct or
Interlibrary Loan to borrow them from other libraries.
Databases and Indexes
for finding articles, book reviews, images, statistics, etc.
Use one of the databases listed below to search for articles.
(If you are off campus, they are only
accessible with a CUID/UNI.)
You can also go to the
Databases list on the
Barnard Library or the
Columbia University
Libraries website, and use the Subject search at the top of the page to find
an appropriate database for your subject.
General and Interdisciplinary
Databases
Databases for the Humanities
Databases for the Social Sciences
Databases for the Sciences
Save your references using
RefWorks, and cite
them in whatever citation style you wish. For help with RefWorks, consult the
RefWorks Tutorial, this
basic guide, or
contact Lois Coleman, Barnard reference
librarian.
Websites for Scholarly Research
-
Google Scholar:
use Google to search for scholarly articles and books; this link
(rather than scholar.google.com) enables you to gain access from off-campus, with
UNI, to databases
subscribed to by Columbia
- INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections
-
Intute: catalogue of scholarly websites
- Librarians' Internet Index: websites you can trust
- Voice of the Shuttle: website for scholarly research in the humanities
Updated 9/05/07 |
