Walden Library Video Transcript:
Title: Walden University Library MMPA 5200/6200 welcome
[Begin transcript]
Visual: Walden Library website
Narration: Hello, and welcome to the Walden University Library! You can use our research collections to find the journal articles and resources that you’ll need for your Public Administration courses. I’m going to show you around the Library website, so you know where to find the collections and resources that will be most useful to you. Let’s start on the Library’s homepage …
On the Library website, the large buttons on the left side represent the tasks that you will most commonly need to do in the Library. For example, at the top is a button that will take you to your Course Readings.
Visual: Course Readings Page
Narration: On our Course Readings page, you can locate the guide for your course, and use it to access any of your required course readings that are held in the Library. To find the guide for your course, use the four-letter course code and number. For example, for this course, we’ll choose the M tab, and then click on MMPA – and then browse the list to find the course number you need.
Visual: MMPA 5200 Course guide
Narration: In the course guide, you’ll find links to the required course readings that are held in the Library’s collections – use these links to find your readings quickly!
Visual: Library website homepage
Narration: Likewise, you can use the Assignment Help button to search for any assignment guides that may be available for your course. If we choose the Assignment guide for this course, you’ll find these helpful links.
Visual: Articles By Topic page
Narration: Articles by Topic will take you to our Subject Research pages. This is where you can find the page for your subject – for Public Administration, choose the Policy, Administration and Security link.
Visual: Policy, Administration and Security Research page
Narration: On the Policy, Administration and Security Research page, we’ve collected a list of recommended databases and subject resources that will be most relevant for your research topics. Scroll down to the list of databases, here: These databases will be great starting points for most of your Public Administration Research.
Political Science Complete may be your first choice for research. It holds over 400 different journals devoted to topics in public administration and public policy.
Business Source Complete may sound like a business database – and it is – but it’s a huge collection of journals and it has great coverage of public administration and management, so it’s a great place to look as well, and you may find very good results here.
Finally, SAGE Premier contains a collection of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, including some important journals in political science and public administration. These journals don’t appear in the other databases, and so it will be worth including SAGE Premier in your research when you want to be sure you’re finding everything you need on your topic.
There are other databases that may be useful, depending on your topic –and these are included further down the page. For example, we have military and security databases, and legal databases that cover legislation and court cases. And we suggest some databases in other subject areas too: Public Policy and Administration sometimes touches on areas such as education, or health care, and so sometimes searching in those databases may provide useful results as well. Always feel free to contact the Library if you need help choosing a database for your searching, and we can make recommendations for you.
Narration: To explore the other resources that the Walden Library holds, use the Start Your Research menu in the top banner of our site. In this menu you’ll find pointers to all of our collections, including dictionaries and encyclopedias, journals, newspapers and magazines, statistics and data, and more.
Visual: Library website Help page
Narration: Finally, if you need help with your research, there are a number of ways the Library can provide that. You can go to our Help page, and explore our guides in the Research Process or Technical Help.
And, you can try a search using QuickAnswers, which provides answers to a wide array of frequently asked questions about the Library, research, and Walden in general. For example, if you need help finding a dissertation, you can type that in the search box, and see answers that can give you more guidance.
And finally you can always contact us using our Ask a Librarian page. There you’ll find a form to send in questions to us, and a phone number to call, along with our hours of availability.
I hope this helps you feel more comfortable with the Library, and ready to start finding the resources you need. We look forward to supporting you along the course of your Walden career. Best wishes with your research, and with this course!