LIS520 Janes

Autumn 2011

Searching Assignment 2

Finding Serial Resources

This assignment will give you experience in searching a variety of sources useful in finding resources in serial form (journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.).

For each of the following requests, you are to search in whatever sources you believe most appropriate or fruitful for the kind of response you would give to the person indicated. You may decide to search in more than one source or kind of source for each; you may decide a single search is enough. Always keep in mind that there might not be “an answer”.

You should submit, for each request,

• a brief list of the sources you searched and the strategy/ies you used. In particular, copy and paste, take screenshots or print out search screens that show what you searched and where
• a summary of any results you might find. You need not print out copies of articles, etc.; citations or characterizations of what you found would be fine. (“This strategy yielded a set of 55 articles, most of which looked at least interesting. A screen shot of titles follows.” “Several variations on this strategy produced either nothing or sets of 5-15 articles, all hopelessly off the mark. A representative set of titles and abstracts are woefully appended.” That sort of thing.)
• any notes on how you might present the response to the user, if you think it’s important (it might not)

Here are the requests:

1 Can you tell me when the first news article about Google appeared, like in a magazine or newspaper?

2 I’m taking a course on religion and science, and I’m interested in whether there has been any discussion about global warming in religious organizations, communities, etc. I’m particularly interested in the US. college junior exploring a paper topic

3 I’ve just started thinking about a new research agenda and would like some good articles on propaganda aimed at women in the US during World War II. faculty member in women’s studies

4 I’m looking for an article that was published in 2010, a review of a number of other studies, which reported that being exposed to drug company information had an effect on the quantity and quality of drugs that doctors prescribed. Can you find me that article?

Your submissions will be evaluated on the decisions you make, the search strategies you use, the results you obtain, and the overall quality of your presentation. I will prefer responses that feature use of tools that specialize in monographic search (as compared with tools that have more general use, such as Google and Wikipedia).

You are to work on this assignment on your own (though see the statement on Academic Integrity in the syllabus on what that means). Your submissions should be in printed form; please start each new question on a new page, and be sure that your submission has the last 4 digits of your student number and not your name in the upper right hand corner of the first page.

The Assignment is due to me in class on November 16.