Legends of the Library Ninjas by K-State Salina Library

Legends of the

Charland

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Blackburn ●

Wise

Kansas Wesleyan University

Kansas Wesleyan University Memorial Library seeks to support the University Mission by providing a variety of materials promoting and integrating academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility. Memorial Library embraces innovation in teaching and learning. In addition, the library recognizes the changing media landscape and endeavors to provide informational and recreational materials in a variety of formats including print and non-print.

Kansas State University

The mission of the Kansas State University Salina Library is to support the college in its mission of teaching, scholarship, and service, and to support resource sharing in the community and state. In striving to fulfill these goals, the philosophy of the library is changing. The Library is no longer a quiet warehouse of materials; it is a facilitator of information exchange. Successful implementation of these goals is influenced by a tradition of providing print and non-print resource materials, the promise of new technologies, and well-trained library staff who facilitate information access.

Greg “Inky” Charland Writer/Artist

He currently writes for Five and Dime Comics at www.fiveanddimecomics.com. Greg is more like his comic book heroes than most people realize. Namely, Superman. Like Superman, he’s from Kansas, he can fly … in a plane, he has super strength … of will, and he has a dual identity. To his family, he’s Greg. Greg is quiet, content to keep the status quo, and not ruffle any feathers. To his closest friends, he’s Inky. Inky is loud, opinionated, and authoritative. He would like to thank his wife, Lisa, for her love and support throughout this process.

Call Numbers/Dewey Decimal The library uses a system called the Dewey Decimal System to organize the books into 10 major class categories, numbered 000-999. These categories are subdivided further into 10 division categories, and the division categories are divided into 10 subdivisions. The major classes are:

000s - General information such as encyclopedias and dictionaries,

computers, library science, journalism

100s - Philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, occultism 200s - Religion 300s - Social sciences including sociology, anthropology, statistics,

politics, economics, law, social problems and services, education, commerce, communications, transportation, and customs

400s - Language, linguistics 500s - Natural sciences including astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology,

biology, botany, and mathematics

600s - Technology including medicine, engineering, agriculture,

manufacturing, and construction

700s - Arts including architecture, sculpture, drawing, painting, graphic

art, photography, music and performing arts

800s - Literature and rhetoric 900s - History and geography Every book in the library has a unique call number that gives it a unique place on the shelf. The call number is made up of the Dewey Decimal number, a Cutter number (which is a letter/number code abbreviation of the author or title), and year of publication. Sometimes a call number will also have a letter or colored dot at the top if it’s part of a special section like children’s literature or reference works. The call number may also have a volume or section number, or a copy number at the bottom. The books are arranged in letter and number order, starting from the top down. You can read a call number like this: 363.7 - The Dewey Decimal number. This book is in the social sciences section. F797 - The Cutter number. This book has an author whose last name is Friedman. 2008 - The year the book was published c.2 - This is the second copy the library owns. A few helpful hints: • Remember your decimal numbers from grade school. Start with the whole number, then go place by place in the decimals. For example, 313.049 comes before 313.43, because the 0 in the tenth decimal place in 313.049 comes before the 4 in 313.43. • The Cutter numbers are in letter and number order. Cutter numbers always start with a letter (or sometimes two letters), then numbers, and then sometimes another letter. Remember your alphabet. For example, R722b comes after R722a If you have any trouble reading a call number or finding a book, you can always ask the librarian to help you find it.

Searching the catalog/Boolean What is “The Catalog”? The catalog is just an online listing of all the books, journals, movies and other items we have in the library. When you search in the catalog, you can find items on thousands of topics and easily locate them in the library by using their call numbers (those tiny numbers located on the spines). To access the catalog, go to the library’s homepage and click on the link that says “catalog.” That’s it, you’re in the catalog! You can do a quick and simple search by entering a keyword in the search box, or do an advanced search to find exactly what you are looking for right away. Searching the catalog isn’t quite like doing a Google search, so here are some hints to make everything a little easier: Hint #1: Make a plan and break down your assignment Take a question from your assignment or create your own. For example: “What are the harmful effects of global warming on animals in the United States?” It is a basic question you may have decided upon for a research project. Now we need to break it down into specific parts. In this question, GLOBAL WARMING, ANIMALS, and UNITED STATES all stand out as key terms that might be helpful in our search. Use the advanced search to plug in all three terms. Hint #2: Using AND, OR, and NOT You’ll notice that between the search bars, there is a little button that says “AND.” You can change it to “OR” or “NOT,” as well. You may be wondering what’s so special about these three little words, but there’s a good explanation. By using these words to connect your terms, you can widen or narrow your search depending on your needs. This will save you lots of time and effort by streamlining your search efforts. When you connect with “AND,” you make a search more precise. Check out this diagram:

When you connect with “OR,” you broaden your search. Check out this diagram:

Using “OR” allows you to retrieve items that deal with each term separately, so you get all the books on either GLOBAL WARMING, ANIMALS or UNITED STATES, instead of a few books that contain all of your terms. Finally, you can use “NOT” to exclude a term from your search. For example, you wanted to do a search on GLOBAL WARMING and ANIMALS but not in the UNITED STATES, your search would look like this:

Hint #3: Change your search terms What if we did our search and only found a few items? That doesn’t mean the end of the road, it just means you need to take another look at your search terms. What if we substitute AMERICA for UNITED STATES? By changing just one or two words, the library suddenly has more books than we found the first time! Think of synonyms for your search terms and try those alternatives instead. You may suddenly have more books than you can carry! Each library has a different catalog, but these tricks will work in every catalog, so you can always find something, no matter where you are searching. Pretty awesome, huh?

Finding Scholarly Journal Articles Scholarly journals are periodicals that contain articles written by researchers or professionals in a particular subject or discipline. These articles contain original research and references to sources. Many scholarly journals subject their articles to a peer review process in which experts in the field review the article for accuracy and authority. Here are some ways to recognize a scholarly journal article: • • • • • • •

Scholarly journal articles often have an abstract, or summary of the article contents Scholarly journals generally have a more serious “look”. They may contain graphs and charts, but few pictures or advertisements. Scholarly journals always cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies. Articles are written by a scholar in the field or by someone who has done research in the field. The affiliations of the authors are listed, somewhere in or with the article, such as a university, research institution, or company. The language or vocabulary of scholarly journals is usually technical and specific to the discipline for which its written. The main purpose of a scholarly journal is to report on original research or experimentation to communicate the information to the rest of the scholarly world. Many scholarly journals are published by a specific professional group or organization.

To find scholarly journal articles, you can limit your database research results to “scholarly articles”, “journal articles”, or “peer reviewed articles”. You can also look for articles in periodicals that have “journal” in the title, such as Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.

Evaluating Journal Articles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

How do you know if an article is a good choice for you? Figure out the purpose of the article: Why did the author write it? Who is the audience? Is it written for advanced physicists or elementary school students? Is the research objective? Does it take sides or show bias? Does the article provide clear conclusions that are based on the provided research? Is the article current? When was it published? Is the author an authority on the topic? Is he or she a recognized expert in the field? What kinds of references were used? Did the author use valid and accepted research as the basis? Is it useful and relevant to your research?

Inter-Library Loan (I.L.L.) What happens if you have a good idea for your research topic, but the library doesn’t seem to have any books that match your topic and no access to online journals that might help? No problem! The library can easily find and request books from other libraries across Kansas and the United States. If you already know which specific book you need, just bring information such as the author and title to the library and we’ll get it ordered. If you know what your topic is, but don’t know which specific items you need, a librarian can help you find what you’re looking for using other online catalogs. After the item is ordered, the library will contact you as soon as it comes in. Depending on where the item is being sent from, it could take anywhere from a day to a month, but the average is usually a week. DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO REQUEST SOMETHING, BECAUSE IT MIGHT NOT COME IN SOON ENOUGH!