Off The Shelf

I remember when my father finished his dissertation. He had a couple copies bound: one for the University library and another for home. The family celebrated by buying our first color television (it was the mid ’80s . . . we were a bit behind the times). It was the exciting culmination of years of work, but where is that dissertation now?

Well, there’s still a copy on my parents’ basement, and another copy in storage at the university (probably in a much larger basement). Last I’d heard, the university had ripped off the cover and pasted it to a library wall along with dozens of other dissertations. Not exactly what I’d call easy access for other scholars.

If you’ve looked for a dissertation written in the decades before the internet, you’ve probably run into the same issue. Dissertations are not published in large numbers; typically the granting university will hold a single copy they won’t loan out, and no one bothers to digitize the old ones.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full-Text is a great resource for more recent dissertations. And by recent, think 1997 to the present. Still, that’s over a half million you can read online.

Older dissertations may be listed in the ProQuest database, but you won’t find the full text online. Sometimes you can find a dissertation through UMI’s Dissertation Express, which will let you purchase a copy online.

But sometimes your only option is the physical copy sitting in that library basement. (Hey kids, how about a vacation to Kentucky University?)

Of course, that’s not universally true either. Check out this interesting article from Barron’s about Alan Greenspan’s dissertation. (Warning to Greenspan fans: this one’s pretty critical, but it does illustrate my point.) And some students at the University of Iowa have protested the University’s attempts to provide open access to dissertations and theses.

Of course, dissertations aren’t the only way to find out about an authors’ ideas. Many dissertations are retooled and published as articles or books, and the topics covered in the dissertation may have inspired later research by the author. Try searching the library’s article databases or Google Scholar by author name, or search for the author’s CV online.

Have you had to work around a dissertation that seems lost to the sands of time? Are you thinking about ways you can avoid that fate for your own dissertation?

–Erin

Vaguary on Flickr provided the image

I like free tools where I can instantly see how they make my life simpler. Here are a couple that quickly help you see if a book is available at your local library (adding on to the LibCat post) .

1.) Worldcat.org
Go to www.worldcat.org. Type in your title, author or keywords and click search. After you have selected the book you are interested in, use the “Libraries” tab to enter your zip code. You can they see the closest libraries to you that own that item. Bonus: Worldcat will give you an APA citation–just click “Cite this item”

Tip: If it is an academic library–contact the library to double check their policies on unaffiliated users.

2.) Library Lookup
This bookmarklet feature created by Jon Udell allows you to one-click lookup of your local library from sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and more.

a.) First go to your local library’s catalog and determine which vendor the catalog is from. Usually just check the bottom of the catalog screen.

b.) Next, go to the Library Lookup Project. Search for your library under the appropriate vendor.

c.) Bookmark the URL from the list. If desired, add it to your bookmarks tool bar.

d.) Search Amazon, Barnes & Noble or other sites. When you find an item you are interested in, click the bookmark. A new window will open with the catalog record and you can see if it is available.

-KateP

This short article gives some good rational of using Web 2.0 technologies (such as this blog) to connect to users. I think this is true whether you are a Fortune 500 company, a small business, a library, a professor, a non-profit, or any person/group who provides a product or service. Allowing your users to see a more human side and connect/engage (if they want) on the product or service easily and cheaply adds the “story” element Daniel Pink refers to in A Whole New Mind.

Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0?

By DAVID POGUE

Published: March 27, 2008
The New York Times

“When a company embraces the possibilities of Web 2.0, though, it makes contact with its public in a more casual, less sanitized way that, as a result, is accepted with much less cynicism. Web 2.0 offers a direct, more trusted line of communications than anything that came before it…Yes, you’ll have to moderate this stuff. Yes, it means spending money with no immediately visible return on investment. Yes, it’s more work for everyone. But you’ll gain trust, goodwill and positive attention. You’ll put a human face on your company. And you’ll learn stuff about your customers that you wouldn’t have discovered any other way.”

What do you think of sites with Web 2.0 features? Have you engaged? Any positive experiences? Any negative experiences?

-KateP

The time between quarters can be a good time to  explore the resources  available to you as a Capella learner.  Two great places to start are the:

AND

Use this time to build skills and become familiar with tools that will be useful and save you time during your research and writing courses.

-KateP

As a professional it’s a good practice to keep up with the current trends, new developments and research within your field. There are several ways you can maintain and increase your knowledge long after you earn your degree.

1. Joining professional organizations is an excellent strategy. They usually provide periodic newsletters with membership and host conferences which allow opportunities for networking and discovering new ideas.
2. Check out blogs written by practitioners and scholars within your profession. Try Google’s Blog Search or Technorati to locate blogs. Then use an Aggregator or Reader to easily keep up with new posts. Check out the RSS section of the Capella Library guide Librarians’ Cool Tools to learn more.
3. You can use Journal Locator (linked from the Library Homepage) to browse and read current issues of leading journals in your field. Try using a search engine such as Google to find professional organizations to view journals they recommend or publish. Then use the following steps to check if the journal is available in full text in the library databases and read articles from current issues.

1. Go to the Library Web Site.
2. Click Journal Locator
3. Type in the journal title (e.g. Journal of Counseling Psychology) and search. Click the database name.
   
   
4. Click the journal volume/issue and browse the current issues.
5. To read the full text of any of the articles, just click the HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text link.

-Sommer

Are you looking for a local library to supplement your research in the Capella University Library? Libcat is a great place to start! It includes a list of links to government, academic, public, and other libraries for each state, so you may be able to find a library near you. If you’re not sure about your local library resources, check it out!

Do you ever feel like if you were a librarian, searching for resources for your literature review for your dissertation would “a piece of cake”. Well think again, in addition to being a librarian I am also working on the first draft of my proposal for my dissertation. I am in the midst of my literature review, defining my research question and choosing my methodology, so I feel the “pain” many of you are experiencing.

Despite being a librarian my first search for articles and books for the literature review did not turn up the perfect set of resources. I started writing and thinking about my research question and found I needed to get more articles on other aspects of my question (drat!). Doing a comprehensive search for all the literature related to my question, is such a circular, back and forth process.

So now that you know that even librarians are challenged by doing a comprehensive literature search, I hope you will feel you can call on the Capella Library for assistance if you are stuck in some aspect of your search, or just if you want some ideas to get started. . We can provide keyword and database suggestions and are the experts on the resources here at Capella and also appropriate resources through the Web. I am personally glad that I just have to help you find the resources and do not have to write them up!

-Robin

Check out following resources to help with your Literature Review: School Specific Research Guides and Resources for Doctoral Learners

Never called the Capella Library before? Listen to a sample call from the Library Research Handbook, click “Calling a Capella Librarian.”

Are you in Chicago at Colloquia? Stop by the Library/Writing Center for a one-on-one appointment with a librarian. Also attend one of the Library sessions.

-KateP

The Capella Library has two great databases for technology research:

• ACM Digital Library
• IEEE Xplore (added in January)

If you are used to searching our other databases, you may be confused the first time you try one of these. ACM looks very different from our other databases, and it searches a little differently. Our IEEE subscription doesn’t include everything available, so you may want to limit your search to our full text collection.

If you are having trouble creating an effective search in either of these databases, you can look at our handy user guides. These are linked on the Databases A-Z page under the database name.

For more search help you can look at the resources available on the library’s Guides & Tutorials page, or Ask A Librarian.

–Erin

Since we get many calls and emails on this topic–let’s have a quick lesson. So, let’s say you find a citation on the Internet or in a list of references and you want to get the item in full text in the Library.

Step 1. What is it? Use the examples below to help decode the citations:

Step 2: Find the item

Journal Article
How to find: Search Journal Locator by Journal or Publication Title to check if the Library has full text. Use Interlibrary Loan to get materials we do not have in full text.

Book & Book Chapter
How to find: Search by the Book Title in the Library’s ebook collections such as ebrary and NetLibrary. Or search WorldCat to find in a library near your home or work. Use Interlibrary Loan to get materials we do not have.

Questions? Ask a Librarian

-KateP