Research Basics | Library Home Page
If you do not know very much about your chosen topic, you would be well-advised to start with an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias can be invaluable for gathering background information. They can help you narrow your topic if you find that your topic is too broad. They will also provide you with the buzzwords and phrases usually used in describing and discussing your topic, as well as names of individuals and organizations associated with the topic. You will find these names, words and phrases extremely important when you begin to use the book catalog and the magazine and newspaper databases. The names, words and phrases are your keywords. Write them down!
The Media Center owns several sets of encyclopedias such as Collier's Encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia Americana. These are located at the far left of the first Reference shelf unit nearest the circulation desk.
If you are an extended-campus or KYVU student, you will need to check at your local library for available encyclopedias.
The Media Center carries a number of subject encyclopedias. Examples include the Encyclopedia of Religion and the Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Use the KCTCS Library Catalog to locate subject encyclopedias. Be sure to click on the SET LIMITS button and limit your search only to Elizabethtown CC.
When you type in your search, use general terms such as Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, and Education. Combine these terms with the following phrase
"+ encyclopedias"
If you are an extended-campus or Virtual University student, you will need to check at your local library for available encyclopedias.
CQ Researcher (Print)
This publication is prepared by Congressional Quarterly, Inc. It is published weekly. Each issue is devoted to a different political or social current issue. The topics of discussion for recent issues have included Distance Learning, War on Terrorism, Civil Liberties in Wartime, etc. Each publication contains an overview of the topic, an assessment of the current situation, opposing arguments, timelines and bibliographies. The online version also includes links to relevant Internet sites.
The print publications are located on the index table near the circulation desk and Reference area. The issues for the most current year are collected together in a three-ring binder. Issues for earlier years are bound in blue books. Coverage for the print issues is from 1991 to the present.
Use the index for the most current year (turn to the blue pages found in the back of the three-ring binder.) This index contains information not only for the issues for that year but for all the issues back to 1991. The topics are arranged alphabetically. Each topic will be followed by titles of CQ Researcher publications that pertain to the topic, along with the date of publication and page number. If you locate a title for a publication that would be useful for your paper, write down the year and the page number. Choose the book or binder for that year and turn to the page number that you wrote down. If you are researching the topic of pregnant teenagers, you may decide to look under Teenagers. The index provides, in this case, a cross-reference. It tells you to go back to the A's and look under Adolescents and youth. The topic Adolescents and youth includes the following subcategories: Employment; Health; Alcohol and drug use; Pregnancy. This last subcategory includes several entries for issues or articles on the topic. One issue is titled Preventing Teen Pregnancy. The date of publication (5/14/93) and the page number (409) are located to the right of the title. In order to look at this publication, you will need to take the blue book with the year 1993 printed on the spine and turn to page 409
Xreferplus - searchable and browsable electronic database that contains the digitized form of hundreds of established reference titles. Works include dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and handbooks published by Thames and Hudson, Macmillan, Penguin, Cambridge, and more. Categories include art and architecture, biographies, food, geography, law, medicine, law, sociology, literature, music, history, philosophy, science and technology. The Language category includes English-language dictionaries, foreign-language dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries, thesauri, quotation handbooks and more. The Medicine category includes Mosby's Medical, Nursing and Allied Health and Dental dictionaries. The Science category contains dictionaries of astronomy, biology and physics as well as dictionaries covering all the sciences. At this point in time the database must be searched on campus.
Kentucky Virtual Library - Virtual Reference Desk - General
This will provide links to such online resources as the Acronym Finder, Information Please Almanac, and Encyclopedia.com.
Kentucky Virtual Library - Catalogs and Databases - Grolier Online
Click on the Grolier Online button at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to the online versions of the Encyclopedia Americana and the Grolier Multimedia.
You can use this online resource to get ideas for topics, to read overviews of arguments pertaining to social and political issues, and look at articles published on various topics. Click on Key Issues in the right-hand menu in order to browse through a list of general topics. Click on each topic to get an overview of the topic, the history of the issue and recently published articles pertaining to the topic.
The other links on the main page may also prove useful. Historic Documents will give you the text of major documents such as the U.S. Constitution; it will also give links to the text of treaties, important Supreme Court decisions, speeches and other resources. Country Profiles will provide maps, information on population, economy, government, history and recent events for every country.
Off-campus access is available for this resource. Click on the Off-campus link next to the Facts.com link on the Library Home Page. You will be redirected to the KCTCS proxy server portal. Type in your KCTCS email user ID and password.
Use the Browse by Topic link on the left side. If you know what your topic will be, you can use the Quick Search option in the left margin of the main page. Use quotes to search for phrases. Example: type "welfare reform" rather than welfare reform in the Search field. Click on the GO button once you have typed in your search. Links to issues that include information on your topic will appear in the main frame on the right. The list displays the titles of those issues along with the dates of publication. Click on the title of an issue to pull up the issue.
Off-campus access is available for this resource. Click on the Off-campus link next to the CQResearcher link on the Library Home Page. You will be redirected to the KCTCS proxy server portal. Type in your KCTCS email user ID and password.