Library Student Newsletter: Fall 2017

Welcome From the Director

Five Things You Need to Know About the Library

Research Homepages

Ready, Set, ACCESS: How do you access full text of articles from the Walden Library databases?

Why do I find broken resource links in the Library?

Mysteries of the Library: Revealed!!

What are Quick Answers?

Doctoral Student Appointments

Upcoming Library Labs & Webinars

Library Lab Suggestions

For fun ...

Student Feedback Corner

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Savvy Searcher. Every quarter this newsletter will deliver useful research tips and library news.  In this installment, you’ll discover several ways to delve into the library resources. If you’re not sure where to start, I recommend the webinar series, “Mysteries of the Library: Revealed!"

Wishing you success in the fall term,

Michelle Hajder

Director, Walden University Library

Personalized Assistance

The librarians have your back! You can reach us anytime through our Ask a Librarian service. We have subject specialist librarians who can help you with library research in your field of study. 

Doctoral students can even schedule one-on-one doctoral research appointments with their subject librarian.

Course Readings

Quick Answers

Sometimes you just need an answer and you need it now. Quick Answers is the Library's searchable database of frequently asked questions. Quick Answers is so good, even the librarians use it to find information!

Have you tried to open a link from Google Scholar, our databases, or course readings guides and run into a link that won't open properly? It happens and we wanted to explain why! The list below provides some insights into to the most common issues with accessing resources in the library.

Technical Issues: 

As an example, a technical issue may be a firewall through your internet connection (e.g., government building Wi-Fi) or your security software (e.g., Norton Antivirus). For help or questions with these settings, you can reach out to Customer Care. If you have Satellite internet, this could also be a culprit. It could also be as simple as updating your browser cookie settings if you see the message “attempting to authenticate to a non-existent session”. Take a look at our Technical Help guide for more information about common technical issues.

Link Resolver Issues:

The Find @ Walden link resolver errors tend to be the most frequent issue plaguing our access to articles. If the database doesn't contain the required information about the journal, the link resolver won’t be able to successfully resolve to the full text of an article. 

You can see if the Walden Library has access to the article even if you're seeing this error. Searching by journal title will confirm whether or not we have access to that article in another database. Learn more about search by journal title.

Database Outages:

Although it doesn't happen very often, databases do have outages. It could mean a server is down, there is some bad coding somewhere, or perhaps they accidentally turned off our connection. There are so many things that could go wrong. The library strives to work with vendors to restore service and communicate any outages to the students. Usually, database vendors restore their services within 24 hours but sometimes it may take longer.

Google Scholar:

There are several issues that could happen with Google Scholar. The biggest issues students who are new to using Google Scholar run into is that they are asked to pay for the article. You can fix this problem by connecting the Walden Library to Google Scholar and clicking on the Find @ Walden link to the right of articles instead of the title of the article. Don't see a Find @ Walden link? Not a problem! Learn more about finding full text in the library.

Course Readings:

The most common issue with required articles accessed through the Walden databases comes from the journals being dropped by the database vendor. Once the journal is dropped, any subsequent article published in that journal is removed as well. Unfortunately, databases providers don't notify us before a journal is removed from their collection. If you run into any issues with accessing required course readings through our Course Readings guides please reach out to us at Ask a Librarian. 

Need to complete a Library task? Quick Answers gives you the steps and information you need! You will find a Quick Answers search box on the Library's main page, as well as in your portal. Remember, this is not a database for articles, but it will give you the information you need to use Library resources. 

Here are the most popular Quick Answers to get you started: 

• Does the Library have textbooks?
• How do I find articles on my topic?
• How do I find optional or supplemental readings?
• How do I find scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles?
• How do I verify that my article is peer reviewed? 

If you don't find what you need in Quick Answers, you can  Ask a Librarian! We're always happy to help! 

If you are a doctoral student who is struggling with research, information literacy, or any other library-related skill,you can make an appointment with a librarian to get assistance. Select Doctoral Research Appointment on our Ask a Librarian page to make an appointment with a librarian in your subject area.

Is there a library topic that has you confused? Or an assignment that requires intense and in-depth research? Perhaps there's a resource that is confusing to navigate? Please provide us with some suggestions for topics you'd like to see us cover.

Do you love to read?  Love to hate the villains in stories?

Norton has put together a Periodic Table of Literary Villains that you can peruse.  How many have you met?  Who is your favorite?  Do you and your family/friends agree or disagree about which characters are the most wonderful horrible?

Did you know that the Library has created detailed, tailored guides for each of our subject areas to assist you with your research? Our Research Homepages contain a plethora of subject-specific information, including databases, e-books, government websites, tests and measures, theories, and webinars. We have Research Homepages for all of our subject areas: Business and Management, Counseling, Criminal Justice & Security, Education, Health Sciences, Human Services, Information Systems and Technology, Nursing, Public Policy & Administration, Psychology, Social Work, and Undergraduate.

The Research Homepages can be accessed via the Library’s Homepage by clicking on the Articles By Topic button on the left-hand side of the screen. While you are on the Articles By Topic page, be sure to check out our Research Starters By Population guides, located just beneath the Research Homepages. These guides are designed to help you begin research on a specific population. We currently have the following guides available: African American Research Starter and LGBT Research Starter. 

You have done your research and have found some great articles, but how do you access those articles?  It’s tempting to click on the title of the article, but that may only bring you to the abstract or to the publisher’s website where you are asked to pay. 

In the Walden databases, there are a couple of ways you can access the full text of an article.  First, look for the PDF or HTML link.  These links are usually located below the item in the results page or near the top of the screen if you are looking at the abstract.
 

If there is no link PDF or HTML link, look for the Find @ Walden link.  Clicking on this link will either take you directly to the article or, if the article is located in more than one database, it will take you to a list of those databases.  You can then select the database you want to use to access the article.
 

It is also possible that there is no link to the full text of the article.  What do you do then?  

This means that the database could not find the article in the Walden Library. Just because the database cannot find the article, this doesn't necessary mean the article is not somewhere in the Library. We can check to see if the article is available.

The Library recommends that you send us an email through the Ask a Librarian link.  Send us the citation or as much information as you have and we will do the investigating.  If we cannot find it in the databases, or free online, we will send you the link to the Walden Library Document Delivery Services (DDS) where you can request a copy of the article be sent to you electronically. 

DDS is a service that Walden provides that allows you to access materials that are not available at the Walden Library.  Delivery time can take up to 7-10 days.  For information on DDS, including links to register for the service and request articles, see our DDS page here:

Document Delivery Information

You can also check your local libraries if you need it sooner. You can find information about your local libraries here:

Learn about using local libraries and WorldCat to find articles

Remember, when in doubt, Ask a Librarian.  We are always here to help.  Happy Researching!

Have you ever wondered exactly how the Walden Library works? Wonder no more! In this webinar series, we'll reveal all of the ins and outs of successfully using the Walden Library.  We will be presenting a new topic every third Monday of the month from 8:30-9:00 pm EST.  Each month we will take an in-depth look at a different Library tool or resource, show how they work, and how you can use them to be successful in your research. 

Please feel free to share these Library labs with your classmates!

Please provide us with any suggestions about the newsletter or any other ideas you may have!