SpeechCommunication437, Education and Social Science Library, U of I

Library Resources for Speech Communication 437
Fall 2007 - Prof. Leanne Knobloch

Questions? Contact me:
Lisa Romero - 333-6348
Communications Library
122 Gregory Hall
l-romero@uiuc.edu

Welcome! We are providing this site to assist you in exploring library resources on your topic. In case you hadn't noticed, our library is one of the largest in the United States and it can be very intimidating. We will try to make things a little easier for you, but you have to ask questions. It takes patience, curiosity, and a sense of adventure to use our resources and facilities so think of this page as a road map for your travels with us.

You may think of the Library as a place to read, but it is much, much more. We have several purposes. The first purpose is as a repository for information. We have been around a little longer than Google, so it is sometimes a little more difficult to find the information here. That leads to our other two functions - discovery and location. The Library is the place to discover resources that will be helpful to you in your studies and writing. We use various tools to do this, both catalogs and article databases. Explore these tools to see what exists in the collections that will be of help to you. Finally, use the tools we provide to locate the materials you need. Many of our databases include links to full-text articles. What if they don't? Use the Online Catalog to find out where the journals the articles are found in live. It's similar to the good old game Tetris, you build, block by block to create the perfect paper.

Use our Ask-A-Librarian Service to IM, chat, email, phone or find a reference librarian. You can also type in the box to the right to instant message us.

Fill out an Individual Research Consultation Form to sign up for a one-on-one appointment with a librarian to learn about the best databases, search strategies and information sources for your upcoming project or paper.

The use of subject words is generally more helpful to you in the library. We aren't very good about "natural language." We just can't keep up with it! If you have an article that you think will be of use to you, look at the subject headings listed after the citation to get an idea of the terms you can use to expand your search.

For the purposes of your assignments in many classes, you may really need to find some good articles. This is a two-step process. First, you need to find the citation to the article you want. You can use bibliographies or suggested readings lists, or you can search for the topic you are interested in by using one of the over 800 databases we provide to you. The second step is to find the actual text of the article you want. Some of our journals are available electonically, but most still live on the shelves. You will need to use the online catalog to look up the source of the citation you have retrieved from the article database if the article is not available electronically.

Search for Articles - The new Library Gateway should provide you with a simple way to gather general information about your topic. Just enter the terms you are interested in finding in the Easy Search. It will pull up citations to books and articles.

If you are looking for a particular type of electronic resource, you can use the Online Research Resources link to see what is available. You don't have to choose a type, but the opportunity is there. Let's say you wanted an index and abstracting resource in order to search for articles. Just select that tab at the top of the search area. You can also choose the subject area you are working in. These are very broad subjects. You would probably want to choose "Communications" or "Speech Communications" for this class. If you hit the search button, you will go directly to the relevant article indexes and abstracts. Or, (for example) if you know that you just want to look at the Communication Abstracts database, just type the name, or part of the name in the search box.

If you are working off campus you can get into most of these resources by logging into the proxy server. Just select the database you need and you will be automatically prompted for your netid and login. These are the identifiers you use for your e-mail or to register for classes. If you are working from a campus computer you should be able to connect without identifying yourself.

ComAbstracts - ComAbstracts is an OpenURL-enabled database of article abstracts, books, bibliographic records, and other sources of relevance to researchers, scholars, and students interested in fields related to human communication studies (mass communication, human interaction, rhetoric, health communication, communication and new media, journalism, communication history, etc.).

Communication Abstracts - A fairly comprehensive database covering the following subjects - General Communication, Mass Communication, Advertising, Marketing, Broadcasting, Communication Theory, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Communication, Small Group Communication, Organizational Communication, Journalism, Public Relations, Radio, Public Opinion, Speech, and Television from 1977 to date.

PsycINFO - Identifies articles, books and dissertations in psychology and related subjects. Some materials are full text. The database covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, and other areas.

EBSCO- EBSCO online offers general, business, newspaper and health-related information. Provides full text for over 1,250 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, plus 960 journals covering business, management, economics, finance, banking, accounting and selected full text articles from 143 U.S. and international newspapers.

JSTOR - Includes the full-text of over 100 journals in the areas of African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, sociology, and statistics. Most include full texts of complete journals from their inception up to a “moving wall.” The moving wall is a fixed period of time ranging, in most cases, from 2 to 5 years, that defines the gap between the most recently published issue and the date of the most recent issues available in JSTOR.

ILLINET ONLINE CATALOG - Our very own list of holdings plus much more. Look here to find titles to books that you want to read, titles of magazines or journals containing articles that you need, and the location of these items. In addition to the 9 million volumes we have on this campus, you can connect to over 60 libraries within the State of Illinois and request books be sent to you. This can take anywhere from five days to two weeks. Some good subjects to search under include interpersonal communication, social exchange, persuasion, or social perception. You will probably not be able to use specific terms for all theories explored in this class such as chilling effect. You should be able to search quite effectively to see if the authors emphasized in this class have written books on your topic.

WORLD-CAT - Still can't find it? Look here to see if it exists. This connection goes to something called OCLC and you can choose to look for your book in this database. You have several sources here - WorldCat will take to to the place you want to go. You can use the Interlibrary Loan function on WorldCat to request books, or you can go to the Interlibrary Loan department's page to request photocopies of articles. Journal article copies are usually delivered electronically to your Interlibrary Loan account.

Please remember the reference desk in the Communications Library is there to provide assistance on this project. Hours for this semester are:

Monday-Thursday - 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Friday - 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday - CLOSED
Sunday - 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Education and Social Science Library in Room 100 of the Main Library is another place you can go for help. Hours this semester are:

Monday-Thursday - 8:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Friday - 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Saturday - 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday - 1:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.

Both libraries provide chat reference so check with Ask-A-Librarian to see who is online when you need help.

If you ever want to set up an appointment to discuss your research process, feel free to call Lisa Romero at 333-6348 or drop her an e-mail at l-romero@uiuc.edu.

It is possible to access the Ask-A-Librarian site almost any of the hours the Library is open. We provide chat and instant messaging through this site or you can come in or call.