Meriam Library News

The Library is pleased to introduce Multi-SEARCH, a new tool that helps you save time by searching multiple databases simultaneously. The top 30 results from each database are merged into one list and displayed by relevance. The same full text linking features you have enjoyed in our individual databases are integrated into Multi-SEARCH allowing you to either directly access the html or PDF full text, or use Find It, the SFX technology to display other options for full-text retrieval.

You can use our general Multi-SEARCH off the main ReSEARCH Station page for quick searches (searches the Library Catalog, Academic Search & JSTOR), or, if you are doing more comprehensive research within a subject area, select your subject under Research Guides or Find Information About and search up to nine databases relevant to that subject using subject Multi-SEARCH . The subject MultiSEARCH feature allows you to customize the databases selected and to search by title, author or subject, as well as keyword. You can also change the order your results are displayed from the default relevancy ranking, to date, title, or author.

Try Multi-SEARCH today and let us know what you think. We hope it makes your research easier!

Contributed by Sarah Blakeslee

Ever wonder why it takes so long for a book to get published, even though the author finished writing it a year beforehand? This essay by Rachel Donadio in the New York Times offers an interesting view of why this process is so long. In short, it's the time it takes a publisher to market the book -- in other words the business aspect of the publishing industry. From the article:

"Although publishers can turn an electronic file into a printed book in a matter of weeks -- as they often do for hot political titles, name-brand authors or embargoed celebrity biographies likely to be leaked to the press -- they usually take a year before releasing a book. Why so long? In a word, marketing.

"As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it's edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher's publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

"Like movie studios jockeying over opening dates to score huge first-weekend box office numbers, publishers often change publication dates to avoid competition for reader attention and marketing buzz. The publishers of Stephen King, John Grisham and James Patterson don't want their books appearing at the same time, since all three hope to make No. 1 on the best-seller list."

Contributed by Aaron Bowen

Librarians and faculty like to bemoan the fact that students use Google for their research. Who are we kidding? We all use Google if we can get away with it. It's easy and intuitive and more often than not we get fast results that, if not perfect, "will do". But, as seasoned researchers, we also know that when we are looking for scholarly articles we need to use the library's commercial databases, right? Not necessarily. While it's true that the regular Google search engine is generally not good at finding scholarly material, Google's specialty search engine, Google Scholar, which searches an academic subset of the Google database, often results in useful peer reviewed articles and books. Critics of Google Scholar will complain that Google Scholar is not clear about its source content and indexing, does not offer sophisticated search options, and that the database favors the sciences and social sciences. These criticisms may be valid, and it is certainly true that Google Scholar does not include the majority of articles found through our library's databases, but nonetheless it can be a good starting point, especially if you don't need to do a comprehensive search or find the "best" article in the scholarly literature on a topic.

Because some of the content indexed by Google Scholar is commercial, clicking on an item will often result in only an abstract with the option to buy the article. However, if you access Google Scholar through the Web Search link on the ReSEARCH Station, and your search retrieves an article you want to read that does not provide linked full text, look for the Find It @ Chico link below the citation to navigate to the full text of any article Chico subscribes to. You might recognize The Find It @Chico link as the same tool you use through the library databases to find full text. We can apply the same technology in Google Scholar to help you access full-text, but only if you use the link to Google Scholar through the Library ReSEARCH Station. And remember, even if the full-text is not available through Google Scholar or CSU, Chico, you can order articles you want through Interlibrary Loan

Another useful feature of Google Scholar are the links it provides to other articles within Google Scholar that cite the article you are viewing. This can be a great way to find more articles on a topic.

In conclusion, scholars do let scholars use Google Scholar, and although it doesn't replace the library databases, it's a great tool when you want something fast and easy (and scholarly).

Contributed by Sarah Blakeslee

Silva, P.J. (2007). How to write a lot: A practical guide to productive academic writing. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

This is an excellent book, and will be particularly useful for your upcoming paper. And the paper after that. And, in fact, everything you write in college.

How to Write a Lot presents a useful, practical approach to writing. Not that it's wildly groundbreaking - it's not. In many ways it states the obvious. But what it does do is pull a clear methodology for writing together - motivating yourself to write, and writing clearly and efficiently. It serves as a one-stop resource for managing this whole process. And it is a short book written in a clear, straightforward, easily understood style. You can read it in a day or two, and then use the strategies it presents to earn back the time you spend reading it by finishing your paper ahead of time.

Paul J. Silva is a psychologist and tends to draw his examples of the writing process from the psychology field, but his approach to writing is easily applied to other fields. Silva also writes for an audience of graduate students and professors, but again, his approach may be applied to undergraduate papers just as easily as to graduate research. In short, for anyone who feels bogged down / hampered / frustrated / etc by the process of writing, this book presents some useful, practical strategies for alleviating that frustration and producing the writing you need to produce.

Contributed by Aaron Bowen