Happy Halloween from This Week in Reference

Halloween moon, bats, and crows

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 🙂

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