I did the search “video games” and learning (and tried it with and without quotes) because I am currently doing research on this topic. I was surprised that a result came up in the Ancestry Library Edition (it ended up being a newspaper ad from Oregon — I didn’t see any video game relevance ).
I enjoyed doing this exercise. I think that what I learned from doing various types of searches will make me better able to help middle school students who are doing research. One Stop Search is a good place to start, but will they need to know how to look through and decide which articles are relevant. It would need to be emphasized that students should scroll past the first page of listings, since the records are not in relevance order but in database order.
Advantages of One Stop Search: If you are just starting your project/not sure where to go, broader reach, covers wider range of materials, allows you to find results even when you don’t know exactly where to look, don’t have to search multiple times
Advantages of Single Databases: More focused, accurate results, less overwhelming, easier to pick out relevant articles
Question: Is there a way to search within one single magazine/journal only in our databases? (for example, BusinessWeek)
In answer to your question, I think that you can search within one magazine title by using Advanced search in some of the InfoTrac Databases, some of the FirstSearch databases and in eLibrary I believe. Lori can also show you how to find out which databases have which magazines which is a whole other issue!
By: Brandee on April 17, 2008
at 12:36 am
You can also re-rank the listings to have them come up not by database, but by relevance which I find more helpful. I use taht frequently and it helps when I am showing OSS to kids. There is a box right above the search results which allows you to switch how they are sorted.
By: Kate on April 25, 2008
at 3:50 am