- For scholarly, academic, or class-related research projects, a combination of library and Web resources usually produces the best results.
- The Web is easy and fast. Many times, there are things easily available on the Web that are not easily available elsewhere. Moreover, the Web is a revolutionary communications tool.
- However, you need to use the Web carefully. It's important to understand what's there and what isn't there. A lot of copyright-protected materials (books and journals) are not available for free on the Internet. It's also important to ask yourself some questions about what you find on the Web, such as "Who wrote this page?", and "What is this person's academic credentials?". Finally, you still need to use reputable and refereed academic resources, most of which are traditional library resources (e.g., books, journal articles), even though your library may now enable you to access these things via the Web.
- There is a difference between material written for a general audience and material written for professional colleagues. For help in understanding the differences between professional and popular literature, see Distinguishing Scholarly Journals From Other Periodicals in the START tutorial.
- Academic libraries and other types of libraries are working with search engines such as Google and Yahoo to make valuable research materials available in search engine searches. In particular, libraries are trying to make available digital archives and digital libraries that they produce. An international library organization -- the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) -- produces a number of unique and powerful databases, including the world's largest bibliographic database, which is a collection of more than 10,000 library catalogs from around the world. OCLC is working with both Google and Yahoo to make a limited number of records from this database available in search engine searches. Librarians currently are making strong efforts to work with search engine companies to make materials available in search engine searches, but some materials will most likely never be available in a digital format. Most books published before 1995 fall into this category, as well as many older journal articles, newspaper articles, historical maps, archives, letters, diaries, older census statistics, and genealogical materials. Therefore, depending on the nature of your research, you are likely going to have to use a mixture of resourses -- print and electronic.
Use Advanced Search Engine Search Features
- When you do use a search engine for research, be sure to use its advanced search features. Most students use Google. Try using Google Scholar. This service focuses on scholarly and academic documents. Also, try using Google Books. Google is working with major research libraries in the United States to make the full-text of books - or excerpts of books - available on Google Books. For more information on Google and its advanced search features, see the library's tutorial on Google.
- A lot of students also like to use Wikipedia. Wikipedia can be a useful place to look for some information, but you have to carefully evaluate the information that you find there. For more information about Wikipedia, see the library's tutorial on Wikipedia.
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Try the following search in Google Scholar:
"building footprint" and university
Go to Advanced Scholar Search to limit to years 2008-2012. Select an article or document from the results, and give the following information: author(s), title, year of publication (if applicable), and name of journal (if it's a journal article). Also include the URL if it is available full-text online. |
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