Library Student Newsletter: Spring 2019

Message From the Director

Finding Articles on Your Topic

Hidden Resources Gem: SAGE stats Data Guides

Find Full Text with the Find@Walden Button

Meet a Librarian

Database and System Alerts

Unethical or Predatory Publishing

Doctoral Student Appointments

Upcoming Library Labs & Webinars

For fun ... Summer Reading

Library Lab Suggestions

Student Feedback Corner

In this issue, we explore some foundational tools for research success, such as searching broadly, tracking down source content, and the complexities of identifying trustworthy sources. Another thing these topics have in common: it’s great to periodically refresh your knowledge in these areas. As librarians, we are always updating our knowledge on new search tools, resources, and developments in scholarly publishing. I hope that you, too, can find something new or refresh your own knowledge as you explore these articles.

SAGE Stats has a new feature for researchers working with U.S. or state data. Data Guides takes the numbers from SAGE Stats and produces visualizations (maps, tables, or charts) to illustrate key points and trends. This can be useful to illustrate an assignment, project, or capstone project, and the visualizations can be exported as a PowerPoint slide or a PDF document. The resource is updated quarterly with new sources and data series updates.

1. To get started, search a topic or location in the top box on any page. (See a list topics on the Browse by Topic page in Sage Stats.)
2. Then you can browse related data series, add a comparison location, and find links to the source data and additional documentation. 
3. After creating a map, table, or chart comparison, navigate to the Export feature in the upper-right corner of the screen, and download the Data Guide for the specific comparison chart you created. 

Try creating a Data Guide today! Use your Walden login. For additional information, see a brief video demonstration on the SAGE Stats Help Page.

Get to know the Walden Library Librarians. A new Librarian will be featured in every newsletter! 

Meet Nykol Eystad!

1. What is your job at the library?
   I am the liaison and outreach manager
    
2. What do you like the most about working at the Walden Library?
   I enjoy all of my coworkers and I like that we are willing to take risks and try new things.
    
3. What book or series are you reading now?
   I am reading This is Your Brain on Parasites. It’s about how parasites can influence and control behaviors in animals and people.
    
4. What do you like to do in your free time?
   I like hiking, making stained glass, and I’ve recently started archery.
    
5. Anything else we should know about you?
   I've been to over 200 concerts since 1987. At least 132 of those were at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The first concert was David Bowie and the most unique was on a river boat on the Mississippi River.

Have you heard the term predatory publisher? Have you wondered what that means? Is it a publisher like a T-rex, chasing you down? It’s not quite that scary, but predatory or unethical publishing is something you need to know about, both when you evaluate articles you read, and when you want to submit something for publication yourself.  

The Library has added Predatory and Unethical Publishing to our Library Guide to Academic Publishing.  

There you will learn what predatory or unethical publishing is, red flags to indicate unethical publishing practices, and resources for researchers.  In the wild world of the internet, it’s best to be armed with the tools you need to evaluate publishers. We hope this helps!  

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.

Barnes and Noble summer reading lists. 

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.

Just like a physical library, it’s sometimes hard to tell where to start a search for information in the Walden Library. Here are two ways to locate articles in the Library depending on what you’re trying to find.

Subject Resources: Search a Subject Area

For most of your assignments and discussions, you want to search journals related to the subject you’re studying. Right? Business students typically want to go to the library’s business section, and nursing students are interested in searching the nursing and health care sections.

You can do this in our online library by heading straight for the Subject Resources box on the Library homepage and selecting the subject area related to your assignment. Under the databases drop down menu, choose a database labeled “Best Best.” Those are great places to search for full text scholarly articles in your field of study.

Thoreau: Search More Broadly

Ever wonder what that search box at the top of the Walden Library homepage actually searches? Wonder no more! Its nickname is Thoreau, and it searches most of the Library’s databases, from journal articles to books, across multiple disciplines.

This can be a good place to begin if you’re not sure where to start or want a quick idea of how much information is out there on your topic. Remember, it’s possible to get thousands of results using Thoreau, so be prepared to use advanced search skills to narrow your results.

Learn more: Finding Article by Topic

When you're searching for articles in the Walden Library, many people get stuck when they get to the Find@Walden button. Sometimes it takes just a few more clicks to access the full article.

First, click on Find@Walden. This will take you to a page with full-text access or will display a list of databases that may have that article.

If you see the list of databases, click on any one of those blue database links to access the full text. If there is more than one link available, you may need to try again:

It's possible that we don't have access to the article since no library has everything. In those rare cases, clicking on Find@Walden will display a "no results found" or similar message. At that point, you may wish to consult our Ask a Librarian service to double-check that we don’t have it, and we can also help identify other places to get the information.

To learn about more options and tips for finding and accessing articles in the Walden Library, including strategies to determine if the Library provides access to a specific article, please see the Library's guide to Full-Text Articles.

The Walden Library offers many wonderful databases, e-book collections, and other resources necessary for high-quality scholarly research. Maintaining each of these resources (numbering well over 100) is a lot of work, and when issues arise that impact access to a particular resource, the Library’s IT team jumps into action to make sure that access is restored quickly.  The Walden University Library Database & System Alerts is the place to go for updates concerning all issues impacting access to Library resources.

The IT team makes good communication with Library users a priority, making sure that everyone is kept in the loop regarding which resources are impacted, what that impact looks like, and when access has been restored. If you haven’t checked out the Walden University Library Database & System Alerts yet you should! A link to the alerts system can also be found on the Library’s homepage under the What’s new? section.

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!