Information Skills: MA Drama & Theatre

Ronan Madden (Arts & Humanities Librarian) 19/10/11

1. Basics: Library website & catalogue (recap.)

2. Journals and e-journals: - what they are, how to source a journal article

3. Resource discovery using electronic databases: full-text and bibliographic, searching techniques (e.g. Boolean)

4. Off-campus access to e-resources

Topics

Library Web Site

N.B.:

•Journal Portal•Databases A-Z•Article Finder•Subject Portals•How do I?•Study & Research Help

Subject Portal

Starting point for relevant library & web material

- databases- journals- websites

See ‘Drama & Theatre’ subject portal

Catalogue: Tips

• Title searches must be word-perfect• For keyword searches, you can ‘modify

search’ e.g. material type ‘Video/DVD’• Consider synonyms, American spelling• Use the ‘bag’ to export records• Use ‘My Library Account’ to request books

on loan, to see your reading history and to access e-resources from home

• If not in UCC Library:- Inter-library loan- Visit another library e.g. Cork PAL- Try Google books, Internet Archive Text

or other free resources

Journals

• Periodicals, published continuously• Contain new research, cutting-edge• Available in print and/or electronic (30,000+

e-journals in UCC)• Often ‘peer-reviewed’/‘refereed’ – academic

journals• Peer review/Refereed/Juried:

‘The process by which an academic journal passes a paper submitted for publication to independent experts for comments on it’s suitability and worth; refereeing’.

• Accepted/rejected: contribution to the field/new ideas, bias/conflicts of interest, suitability for journal

• Popular Magazines: (articles written by journalists)

- Newspapers

- Substantive news e.g. ‘The Economist’, ‘National Geographic’, ‘New Scientist’, ‘Irish Theatre Magazine’

- Journal of opinion e.g. ‘Magill’, ‘Phoenix’- Magazines e.g. ‘Vogue’, ‘Readers Digest, etc.

• Trade Journals (specific industry, enable practitioners share market and product information within an industry) e.g. ‘Macworld’, ‘Restaurant Business’, ‘Chemical Week’. ‘Beverage World’

Other Periodicals

Finding a Journal Article

Example:

Kwei-Armah, K. (2007) “ ‘Know Whence You Came’: Dramatic Art and Black British Identity”. New Theatre Quarterly, 23(3):253-263.

• Check the Journal Portal• See tutorial: ‘Learn How To…Find the Full-

Text of a Journal Article’ on the ‘Study & Research Help’ page

What if the Journal is not in UCC?

• Google the article title or the author and you may be lucky.

• Inter-library loanhttp://booleweb.ucc.ie/index.php?pageID=44

• Visit other libraries: ‘ALCID’ card or SCONUL card required check with customer services in Boole Library http://booleweb.ucc.ie/index.php?pageID=340

Practice

Find the following article online:

Salata, K. (2008) “Toward the Non-(Re)presentational Actor: From Grotowski to Richards”. TDR: The Drama Review, 52(2):107-125.

Is it also available in hard copy in the Library?

Password: Qfloor1

What are Databases? 1.

• Collections of logically related data, designed to meet information needs of one or more users e.g. files on your computer, company database of customers or products, library catalogue

• A bibliographic or research database is a database of bibliographic information i.e. usually an electronic index to periodical articles, containing citations, abstracts. Sometimes information about books, conference proceedings, theses etc. also included.

What are Databases? 2.

• Sometimes the full text of the articles is included, or links to the full text.

• Some are indexing and abstracting only: i.e. metadata – not necessarily a link to the full text.

• Some are general e.g. Web of Science, others are more subject-specific e.g. ABI-Inform, Medline.

• Must be used when conducting literature searches.

• Other examples: ARTstor for images, Music Online for streaming music

How are Databases Organised?

• Consist of records: one record for each article, book etc.

• A field is the basic unit of entry in a record• For a journal article fields might include:

- Title, Author, Keywords, Source, Publication Year, Abstract etc.

• For each record (e.g. article) added to the database, these fields must be included, and data is entered in that format.

• Searches of the databases can be narrowed to one or more fields:

e.g. Author, Title, Author + Keyword, Keyword + Publication Year etc.

Search Skills 1.

college OR university

poverty AND crime

Boolean Operators: AND, OR

Search Skills

cats NOT dogs

Boolean Operator: NOT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1LpTbzSKd0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsSZps3NH-Mhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vube-ZcJFk4

Some Youtube videos:

Search Skills 3.

• censorship AND theatre• censorship AND (theatre OR theater OR drama OR

play OR stage)________________________________________________________

• (theatre OR theater OR drama OR play) AND (stagecraft OR “stage design” OR “scenic design” OR “scene design” OR “set design” OR “stage setting” OR “costume design” OR “mis en scene”)________________________________________________________

• Theat*• modernis*

________________________________________________________• (Theatre OR theater) NOT hospital• “street theatre” NOT parade

How to Find Relevant Databases

• Subject Portal: Drama & Theatre

• Databases A-Z: (See ‘Search the Library’)Drop-down menu ‘Browse databases by Subject area’.Use ‘Drama & Theatre’ list as a starting point. Depending on your topic, you may also need to search other lists e.g. - Humanities

See also: Tutorial

Full –Text Resources

Start with:• JSTOR• Wilson Omnifile (not all full-text)• Project Muse• LION (Literature Online) (not all full-text)• Academic Search Premier (not all full-text)

Try also:Swetswise, Cambridge journals, Springerlink, Oxford journals, Sage journals, Taylor & Francis journals, Ingenta

[All on the Databases A-Z]

Bibliographic Databases/Indexes

(Usually not full-text)• Examples:

- OCLC incl. Worldcat, Articlefirst- MLA International Bibliography- Arts and Humanities Citation Index

(Web of Knowledge)- British Humanities Index

Also worth a look: Film Index International, Oxford Music Online (full-text), Sociological Abstracts, ASSIA (Social Sciences Collection), SOCindex , RILM (Music)

Further Resources 1.

Online Reference Resources: (as an alternative to Wikipedia)See: Reference Resources under ‘Search the Library’

Images: ARTstor and others: See Images page

Online Newspapers: Irish Newspaper Archive, Irish Times Digital Archive

Music: Music Online, Oxford Music Online (See Music Subject Portal)

Further Resources 2.

E-books: ACLS Humanities E-book (HEB), EEBO (Early English Books Online), ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)

Thesis Databases:

ProQuest Dissertation & Theses UK & Ireland, Index to Theses (UK/IRL), Proquest Dissertations and Theses (North America), ETHOS (UK) Also: How do I find a thesis?

Conferences Proceedings:Proceedings (OCLC), ZETOC

Federated Search

• New product ‘Searcher’ will be available shortly:See: http://ucc.deepwebaccess.com/ucc/

• Note that some results will be from non-academic periodicals

• N.B. you should still individually search specific databases for a thorough literature review

Off-Campus Access

• Use ‘My Library Record’(like when renewing or requesting books)

• Name + student number + six digit password (alpha-numeric)

• N.B. You should access e-resources through the Library web pages so that the ‘My Library Record’ screen will appear

• Students contact Information desk on Q if they have a problem e.g. forgot their password

Practice:

Role of mime in theatre

• Search: JSTOR, Wilson Omnifile, Project Muse, Academic Search Premier, LION etc.

• Search the ‘Irish Times Digital Archive’ for material on Barabbas Theatre Company

• Look for explanations of the term ‘Poetics’ in reference databases like Oxford Reference Online

• Look for theses on a topic that interests you