InterLibrary Loan: No library has it all! But the InterLibrary Loan (or ILL) is a service offered by Holman Library for borrowing books and articles from other libraries. InterLibrary Loan requests are free to current GRC students, faculty and staff.
First, start with the books and articles available through the Holman Library.
Then, If you find books and articles that the Library does NOT have access to, just request them through Interlibrary Loan.
Using Interlibrary Loan increases the amount of resources available to you and helps you become a more thorough researcher.
Books and other items that require mailing may take 1-2 weeks.
Articles and other digital items may arrive within 2-5 days. Use your email as your contact info and the article will be sent directly to you.
If you need help filling out this form, call the library reference desk at (253) 931-6480.
Use the links below to look for books, articles and more beyond our collection:
The tool you will use to find scholarly articles is a library periodicals database (this is the same tool you used to find magazine and newspaper articles).
Limit to peer-reviewed or scholarly journal articles to find scholarly sources. By the way, be sure to still assess if it's a scholarly article. (For example, scholarly journals contain book reviews of scholarly texts. These are not scholarly articles.)
Here's a screenshot from the ProQuest database that illustrates what I mean:
Databases each have a set of controlled vocabulary they use to organize and search content; they are called Subject Terms. If you can't figure out what keyword will find you articles on your topic, you can search that collection's Subject Terms instead of keywords to find the most relevant articles on a topic.
(click on image to enlarge)
Additionally, the Subject Terms list can also help you identify key subtopics, as in the example below.
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A literature review requires you to identify the key issues, questions, and theoretical approaches the scholarly literature focuses on with regard to your topic.
The handout linked below may help you start to map out key facets of the scholarly conversation.
I use it in two ways as shown in the image below
(click on image to enlarge)
ProQuest, Academic Search Complete, and other research databases include article abstracts and citation information without full text. This is useful to you as a researcher!
You may check the box for Full Text only results, but if you leave it unchecked, you will learn about highly relevant articles that you can track down elsewhere, whether in another GRC database or in WorldCat.
You can borrow articles we do not have in full text for free through Interlibrary Loan.
In your results list, click on Check for Full Text in other sources. That will either:
Link directly to the article in another Holman Library database
OR
Provide a link to InterLibrary Loan. Click on the InterLibrary Loan link to borrow the article from another library. Articles are generally available electronically and they will be emailed to you quickly.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Effective researchers "mine" or look through the references of a relevant book or article to find additional sources for their own research. This can be a productive technique!
To track down sources from a references list:
(click on image to enlarge)
AND / OR / NOT help you broaden or narrow your search results:
AND narrows and focuses your search - you get fewer, more relevant results
Ex: "medical care" AND teen* finds information on medical care specific to teens
OR broadens your search - you get more results
Ex: (teens OR youth) searches for both words
NOT omits results
Ex: NOT "book reviews"
Use an asterisk with the root of a search term to find multiple forms of the word.
Add one search term at a time, so you understand what works and what doesn't.
Keep searches simple using keywords to capture core ideas.
Use a variety of search words to find different results
Look for and try relevant Subject Terms you find in the databases
InterLibrary Loan: No library has it all! But the InterLibrary Loan (or ILL) is a service offered by Holman Library for borrowing books and articles from other libraries. InterLibrary Loan requests are free to current GRC students, faculty and staff.
First, start with the books and articles available through the Holman Library.
Then, If you find books and articles that the Library does NOT have access to, just request them through Interlibrary Loan.
Using Interlibrary Loan increases the amount of resources available to you and helps you become a more thorough researcher.
Books and other items that require mailing may take 1-2 weeks.
Articles and other digital items may arrive within 2-5 days. Use your email as your contact info and the article will be sent directly to you.
If you need help filling out this form, call the library reference desk at (253) 931-6480.
Use the links below to look for books, articles and more beyond our collection:
ProQuest, Academic Search Complete, and other research databases include article abstracts and citation information without full text. This is useful to you as a researcher!
If you are not in a rush and choose not to limit your results to what is available now, in full-text, you can see even more results - articles that you can often track down (in full text) from another source, either in another GRC database or in the WorldCat catalog.
If you do not limit to full-text, you should see your results list. In those results, as shown in the image below, click on Check for Full Text in other sources.
Doing this will either:
(click on image to enlarge)
(Click on image to enlarge)
(click on image to enlarge)
Use the handouts below to help you:
Boolean Operators AND OR NOT
AND / OR / NOT help you broaden or narrow your search results:
AND narrows and focuses your search - you get fewer, more relevant results
Ex: "medical care" AND teen* finds information on medical care specific to teens
OR broadens your search - you get more results
Ex: (teens OR youth) searches for both words
NOT omits results
Ex: NOT "book reviews"
TRUNCATION *
Use an asterisk with the root of a search term to find multiple forms of the word.
Teen* = teen, teenaged, teenagers
Add one search term at a time, so you understand what works and what doesn't.
Keep searches simple using keywords to capture core ideas. Search on ethics AND medical care AND immigrants, rather than: Do immigrant communities receive an adequate standard of health care?
Use a variety of search words to find different results
Look for and try relevant Subject Terms you find in the databases