Happy Halloween! What scares you this time of year? Ghosts, goblins, ghouls…research papers? Don’t be afraid. Librarians are here to help. We’ll work with you to shine a light on the shadowy mysteries of the research process. What are you researching? Here are some examples of what we’ve helped students find recently.
- I need sources on Venus and Adonis, a painting by Peter Paul Rubens.
- Do we have a musical score of Frederic Rzewski’s “Coming Together” from 1971?
- I’m looking to access a particular volume of the journal Celebrity Studies, it is a special issue on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
- I am looking for primary sources on the life and accomplishments of Melaku Bayen, founder of the Ethiopian World Federation.
- I wanted to find articles on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, specifically about DEI policies in universities and colleges
- I am interested in finding studies about teaching music education to ELL or dual language students.
- I’m trying to find a reliable data source to determine Chicago’s average rainfall amount in inches.
- Do you have articles about teaching mathematics to middle schoolers and mental health?
- I’m looking for UK music publications that wrote about the band The Smiths any time between 1983-1995.
Here’s a transcript of a recent Ask A Librarian chat with a student:
Student: Hello, I’m searching specifically for qualitative studies of art therapy with chronically ill children
Librarian: hi
Librarian: you can often limit in some databases using “qualitative studies” as a key word, or some of them have a limiter
Librarian: let’s take a look
Student: thank you!
Librarian: APA psycinfo is a good one to start with
Librarian: one sec while I set it up
Student: ok
Librarian: so I set up a combined database search, as I feared, the topic is quite specific, so I took out “qualitative studies” as a keyword, here is where I am: https://bit.ly/3jLIA9Y
Librarian: these still might be, going to tweak a few things
Librarian: this is the only one that comes up with one with all the keywords: https://bit.ly/2ZtktFK
Student: this is perfect I only need one to analyze!
Librarian: if I just do “study” I get these: https://bit.ly/3EouFP7
Librarian: ok!!
Student: the main part was qualitative that i was struggling to find
Student: thank you!
Librarian: ok, great. make sure it is!
Student: from the abstract it looks on track!
Student: thanks again 🙂