We're glad you're here. You've made the first step in delving into research at Denison.
First thing is that you will need to plan ahead. Research can take time, including building in time for getting materials. There are many books and articles available directly within the library or online through the library, but some things will need to be requested. Make sure you build in time for getting books from other libraries through CONSORT or OhioLINK. It will take about 3 days to get them delivered to you. You will get an email when they arrive at our circulation desk for pickup.
Select a topic/thesis for your research project or assignment. Try to focus your topic as much as possible, concentrating on particular aspects of it, or by adding qualifiers (age group, species, place, time period).
Write down your topic as a sentence that makes sense to others. Select the meaningful words from that sentence as your first keywords. Select other related words: synonyms, antonyms, spelling variants, plurals, scientific names, narrower or broader terms in the hierarchy (Ex: reptiles - snakes - phyton), that you can use as alternative keywords.
If you already have a citation for a book or an article that you need to find, the best strategy is to go directly to the CONSORT catalog . The catalog lists all the books and journals that the Denison library owns, with links to the online versions. Click on BOOKS or ARTICLES below for more detailed information.
Do a Title/Author search and find the book. If it is in Denison, use the call number to find it on the shelves. If it is in one of our partners libraries in CONSORT or OhioLINK, request the item using your full name and the complete barcode on the back of your Denison ID. If you cannot find it in CONSORT or OhioLINK, got to Google Books and try to find a free version on the web. If you still cannot find one, you can request an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and the library will find a copy for you for free.
Do a Journal Title search (use the name of the journal, not the title of the article). We have access to a lot of online journals but sometimes only for particular periods of time. Some journals are only in print (2nd floor of the library). Once you find the journal, search for the correct year, volume and page and find the full text of the article. If you cannot find the journal, or the access to the full text of the article from the journal, go to Google Scholar and try to find a free version on the web. If you still cannot find one, you can request an Interlibrary Loan and the library will find a copy for you for free.
If you need to discover a new item, use your keywords to search Summon for books and articles, or explore the BOOKS tab or the ARTICLES tab below to see other options. When searching, try all your keywords, and remember that combining your terms correctly it is also very important (see Boolean operators for more).
Go to CONSORT, do a Keyword search and find a book of your interest. To find related books, open the record and click on the Subject to see other books on the same topic. To obtain the book follow the instructions on STEP 3. While in CONSORT click on the red tab "Search OhioLINK" to search for books in OhioLINK.
Select a Multidisciplinary Database or a Subject-specific Database related to your topic and do a Keyword/Topic search. To decrease the number of hits and narrow down your search, apply limits or refine your results using the options offered by the database. Once you have some promising articles, click on the PDF or 360 LINK icon to try to access the full text. If you cannot find a direct link to the full text from the database, remember that now you have the citation, so go to the CONSORT catalog and follow the instructions on STEP 3.
While still searching in the Databases, you can save or export the records for the articles that look promising to your e-mail or to a Reference Management Program (like RefWorks) to save them for later without losing them. Take a look to our Citation Help to learn more about RefWorks.
Denison Libraries, 100 W College, Granville, Ohio 43023 Phone: 740-587-6235, email: reference@denison.edu In order to view PDF documents, you will need to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer
