Off The Shelf

The big search engine news this week is the release of Cuil (pronounded “cool”).  The creation of some former Google employees, Cuil has been showing up in technology news reports all over the web.  The buzz has been decidedly mixed.  Librarians are heavy web searchers, and we are always looking for the best search tools available.  So I decided to try it out and see if it is worth suggesting to learners.

Cuil Search Page

Cuil claims to search many more websites than Google, puts the results in columns with pictures, and clusters some results into categories.   These modifications are supposed to improve the relevancy of your search results and your speed at finding what you need.

It also uses a different method for selecting and ranking results.  Google places a high importance on links to and from a site; if thousands of websites link to a single site, it must be good, right?  That’s why Wikipedia is so high on Google result lists – Wikipedia is a master of linking to itself.  Cuil, on the other hand, is mining the data on a web page to bring the most relevant results back. 

Some common searches in Cuil bring back decent results.  A search for bald eagle pulled up several websites with useful information, including government and educational websites.  Wikipedia wasn’t at the top.

Also, some searchers have noted that Cuil pulls up odd pictures next to the search results.  For example, the picture next to the MadonnaFanClub entry is of the wrong Madonna!  Go to the actual MadonnaFanClub site, and you’ll find the singer, not the religious figure.

It’s also hard to get any results when you search four or more keywords.  Google, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of searching long phrases.  Librarians often use Google to relocate entire quotes (and teachers use it to nab plaigiarizers).

The most distressing problem with Cuil (in my humble opinion), is the lack of any results when you search for Capella Library blog.  In Google we’re the first result, just where we belong!

Maybe Cuil will improve to the point that it’s a real competitor to Google.  In the meantime, the oldies still are goodies.

 - Erin

One of the first steps in research is determining what you don’t know, so you can fill those holes with what you find.  You start with an idea for a topic, pick your keywords and search strategy, and then  begin searching in a database or library catalog.

But it isn’t always that smooth a process.  Sometimes there’s almost nothing but holes in your understanding of a topic.  This is especially true when you start researching in a field brand new to you. 

That’s where background information becomes important.  Before you can start researching anything, you need to have a basic context for the topic you are researching.  This typically involves a basic understanding of dates, names, movements, jargon etc.  All of this “sets the stage” for your research.

Most of us are familiar with the old standard of the background resources: the encyclopedia.  There are many other sources of background information, depending on the nature of a topic: dictionaries, maps, textbooks, newspaper accounts, summary articles, etc.  A relatively new background resource is Wikipedia, which is a variant of the encyclopedia.

There are many issues with using Wikipedia as a source for a paper, but fewer problems with using Wikipedia as a basic tool for starting to find background information. 

For example, let’s say we’re interested in Mikhail Bakunin, but we don’t know anything about him (many thanks to LOST for picking character names that encourage viewer research). 

If you know nothing, it may be hard to pick a library database or even a traditional reference book.  Most are specialized – how do you pick the right one?  Instead, we can start by looking at the Wikipedia entry.  Here we can find helpful information that will lead us to create better searches:

Bakunin

Basic personal information:

•  
  • Philosopher
  • Anarchist
  • 19th century
  • Russian

With this information, we can now look for general books about Russian philosophers or Anarchist philosophy.  We now know that he is contemporary with the 19th century rise of Marxism and Anarchism, and predates the Russian Revolution.

 Influences and Detractors

•  
  • Kant
  • Hegel
  • Marx

Look to a encyclopedia of philosophy or academic textbook for more information on these philosophers.  Now you have a framework for evaluating Bakunin; how is he different?  What did he think of them?  What do they think of him?

Writings & Associations

•  
  • God and the State
  • The Patriotism
  • Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism
  • League of Peace and Freedom
  • International Working Men’s Association

Look up his writings for primary source material and research the organizations he belonged to.  How does Bakunin fit in with major movements of his day?

Secondary Resources

•  
  • The Bibliography, References and Further Reading sections give bibliographic information for more scholarly works on the topic.  There are probably resources listed here that can be used in your paper.

By spending 5 minutes skimming Wikipedia, we now have several approaches we can take into the library to find more information.  Instead of just doing a keyword search for Bakunin, we can now supplement with searches for marx and anarchism, russia and philosophy, or International Working Men’s Association and anarchism.  With the names of his writings, we can quickly and specifically access primary source material either online or from another library.

There is certainly the possibility that Wikipedia will give you bad information, but you’ll quickly learn what is wrong as you try to include it in your library searches.  As you read scholarly articles and books, you’ll also develop a deeper understanding than Wikipedia could ever provide.

Finally, remember that all background resources are tertiary resources.  They are some of the least appropriate resources for citation in a upper-level research paper or dissertation (Okay, they’re still better than your buddy or some random thing you saw on the internet).  You use them for background; the step before the real research starts.   Remember that, and you’ll be able to place all of your resources in the proper perspective.

- Erin

In a University setting we tend to define expertise according to scholarly credentials, research and publishing experience.  To find experts, we can simply go to the library, look for peer reviewed articles, see who cites who and use our subject knowledge to evaluate accordingly. 

On the wider Internet, however, expertise isn’t so clear-cut. 

There have been a few interesting links this week on the issue of online credibility.

• James Grimmelmann wrote a really good essay on the inherent biases and business objectives of Google results.
• Opposing Views is a new website that pits “experts” from opposite sides of an issue against each other.  For instance “Universal Healthcare?”  pits the Physicians for a National Health Program against Pacific Research Institute. My favorite part of the debates are the Evidence sections, where they have to support their views with outside sources.  (For a more robust version of this kind of service, see our CQResearcher database, which Sommer wrote about back in November.)

• Piggybacking on Erin’s entry, The Chronicle had an article called “U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors Accountable” introducing a new color-coded system for judging author reliability.  Here’s a  link to another report. 

My thought:

Credible authors still don’t make up for the fact that Wikipedia is a secondary source.  It may be a good place ideas and brainstorming; but never worthy of referencing for your scholarly research papers. 

What do you think?

– Erika

Google is launching their own online encyclopedia, Knol.  Unlike Wikipedia, Knol will be written by experts who sign each entry.  This will directly combat some of the major criticisms of Wikipedia:  posts can be poorly researched or written, and no one is held responsible for the quality of an entry.

Knol, by contrast, will err on the side of expertise.  The encyclopedia will still use Web2.0 technologies, such as rating entries for usefullness and adding user comments. 

You can see their official blog announcement and a sample page. 

Here are a few of the advantages I see:

• I’ll know that an actual expert’s reputation is on the line – they’re likely to be more careful about what they write.
• Entries will be more substantial, and less like the random stubs that make up a lot of Wikipedia articles.
• I’ll have a one-stop-shop for background information.  I won’t have to do as much general web surfing and website evaluation. 
• I will be able to see what others think – smart people will be able to add what they know in a comment (without changing the basic content of the post).
• Experts will be more likely to add useful bibliography entries.  Then I can use the bibliography to learn more.

Still Wikipedia (the mob) does have some advantages:

• Wikipedia has articles on the latest pop culture phenomenon.  You can’t beat Wikipedia for a list of Pokemon characters and their DVD releases!
• Knol will be slower and smaller.  Experts take time to build good entries, and it will be a while before there are a lot of them.  Wikipedia may have a lot of stub articles, but at least they’re a start.
• Wikipedia is almost always at the top of Google results – it’s extremely easy to find.  (We’ll see if Google puts a stop to that phenomenon . . . )

So, what do the rest of you think about this?  Will it be just another internet flash in the pan, or do you think Knol will take off?

-Erin

If you’re a frequent EBSCOhost user (Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO, etc) you’ve probably already heard the news.   On Wednesday morning, EBSCO finally rolled out the new interface they are calling EBSCOhost 2.0.   They say the change “will provide you with the most powerful, clean and intuitive interface available.”

Rest assured that a search in the new interface should work the same as a search the old way.  Things are just rearranged, “cleaned up” and hopefully enhanced.

Here’s a quick look at what you will find:

We have definitely run across some…idiosyncrasies.   I have a few questions outstanding with the vendor, so I guess it’s still a work in progress.  I have also experienced delays and errors on a fairly frequent basis, so please be patient if working on a search.    As soon as the kinks are worked out, we’ll update our many guides and other materials to reflect this new interface. 

Stay tuned and try to stay with us as we roll with this rollout.

-EmilyW

We now have access to Journal of Positive Psychology.   It will show up in Journal Locator and Article Linker tomorrow.  We have access from 2006 to present.

PsycBOOKS added the following titles to its coverage list in May and June 2008. Of the titles added, 7 were APA books and 14 were designated classic books.  Classic books are landmark titles in psychology and are selected by APA experts.

APA Books

• Assessing Hispanic clients using the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A, by Butcher, James N.; Cabiya, Jose; Lucio, Emilia; Garrido, Maria, © 2007  
• Case studies in emotion-focused treatment of depression: A comparison of good and poor outcome, by Watson, Jeanne C.; Goldman, Rhonda N.; Greenberg, Leslie S. © 2007
• Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: Psychological, social, and spiritual perspectives, © 2007, by Richards, Ruth (Ed)
• Handbook of clinical health psychology: Volume 2. Disorders of behavior and health. Raczynski, by James M. (Ed); Leviton, Laura C. (Ed), © 2004  
• Handbook of clinical health psychology: Volume 3. Models and perspectives in health psychology, by Boll, Thomas J. (Ed); Frank, Robert G. (Ed); Baum, Andrew (Ed); Wallander, Jan L. (Ed), © 2004 
• Inhibition in cognition, by Gorfein, David S. (Ed); MacLeod, Colin M. (Ed), © 2007
• Psychology’s interpretive turn: The search for truth and agency in theoretical and philosophical psychology, by Held, Barbara S. ©2007  

Classic Books

• Design for a brain: The origin of adaptive behaviour (2nd ed. rev.), by Ashby, W. Ross, © 1960  
• The dialogues of Plato: Translated into English with analyses and introductions (Vol 2), © 1901, by Jowett, B.
• The fate of man in the modern world, by Berdyaev, Nicolas, © 1935 (Reprinted 1961)
• Lectures on the true, the beautiful, and the good, © 1857, by Cousin, M. V.; Wight, O. W. (Trans)
• Man: A creative first cause, two discourses, © 1883, by Hazard, Rowland G.
• The murderous trail of Charles Starkweather, by Reinhardt, James Melvin, © 1960  
• Objective and experimental psychiatry, © 1935, by Cameron, D. Ewen
• Outlines of cosmic philosophy, based on the doctrine of evolution, with criticisms on the positive philosophy (Vol 3), © 1902, by Fiske, John
• The pathway to reality, Stage the second, being the Gifford lectures delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the session 1903–1904,  © 1905, by Haldane, Richard Burdon
• The principles of psychology, © 1869, by Bascom, John
• Recent British philosophy: A review with criticisms including some comments on Mr. Mill’s answer to Sir William Hamilton, © 1866, by Masson, David
• The riddle of personality, © 1908 (Reprinted 1909), by Bruce, H. Addington
• The wild boy of Aveyron (Rapports et mémoires sur le sauvage de l’Aveyron), by Itard, Jean-Marc-Gaspard; Humphrey, George (Trans); Humphrey, Muriel (Trans), © 1932
• William James (2nd ed.), © 1912, by Boutroux, Émile; Henderson, Archibald (Trans); Henderson, Barbara (Trans)

– Erika

I received many questions this morning in the Library’s email box about writing and the APA format. Besides the APA Publication Manual,  the first resource I think of for these questions is Capella’s Online Writing Center.

Here is the path through iGuide: Academic > Academic Support Resources > Online Writing Center, now you can see where I came up with the title of this article.

I also point out this resource when I am talking to someone on the phone. They are often pleasantly surprised at the amount of and quality of information the site contains. 

I want to highlight two sections for you to bookmark or add to your favorites:

Need some help “distilling” the APA Publication Manual? Check out the recently revised APA Style and Formating interactive module.

Need some help with an Annotated Outline, Writing in the Third Person, or Writing a Course Paper? Check out the many helpful handouts/modules on the Writing Center’s Handouts & Modules  page.

I have reviewed and used several of these modules and handouts for my own writing and have found them very ”user-friendly” and helpful.

Can’t find what you need at the Online Writing Center? You can contact the Capella’s Writing program at: writingprogram@capella.edu  Currently there is not way to contact them by phone.

Let me know what you think about these resources, did you find anything surprising?

Robin

Are you using print books in your research?  Sick of typing the information into an emptry RefWorks form? 

You don’t have to mess with that any more!  You can use WorldCat to get APA citation information into RefWorks quickly and easily.  Check out this video that WorldCat has added to YouTube:

WorldCat is a great way to find out which local libraries have the books you want, save lists of things you’d like to read next, and generate APA citations.

You can fnd WorldCat on the open web (www.worldcat.org) or from the library’s Databases A-Z list. 

–Erin

Whenever I or the other Capella librarians bring up web resources such as blogs, learners will often respond with the question:

“How can I use those in my papers?  They’re not scholarly sources.”

That’s a great question.  Blog posts aren’t peer-reviewed journal articles.  Many of them are hardly more than a paragraph or two.  They aren’t going to be suitable for a paper or your dissertation, but they are a great way to find out about scholarly research.

How?  Many scholars and professionals blog about their fields.  They’ll mention important events and publications, or talk about recent hot topics.  Most will also link to other resources or cite important research papers.  You can then use that information to drill down to the actual research.

I just had that experience today.  I saw a post on one of the librarian blogs I monitor: “You’ll Like This Post.”  The post mentioned some recent research into the effect of reading novels.  I was intruiged by the idea that reading novels can improve social skills, so I checked out the link embedded in the post. 

That brought me to the Globe and Mail article “Socially Awkward? Hit the Books.”  It mentioned a recent article in the journal New Scientist that surveyed the research on the topic.

With that bit of knowledge I went to Journal Locator, looked up New Scientist, and then searched in that journal for articles with the keyword “fiction” from the last month.  I very quickly found “The Science of Fiction; Reading Novels Isn’t Just Entertaining, It Helps You Navigate the Complex Social World.”

That article mentions several scholarly journal articles - I was able to use Journal Locator to find several of the scholarly journal articles mentioned, including “Bookworms Versus Nerds: Exposure to Fiction Versus Non-Fiction, Divergent Associations with Social Ability, and the Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds.”

One article is still in press.  To make sure I can still find that article when it’s finally available, I can manually add it to my RefWorks account and put it in a “too read” folder.  Then I can check for it later.

So, from a simple blog post I was able to pull together the full text of several research articles in under 10 minutes.  And I now have evidence that my time spent reading on the bus is making me a better person!  Not that a librarian would be biased on that account . . .

- Erin

Coming soon:

We’ll be going through 23 Things that are part of Web 2.0.  Follow along to learn more about what Web 2.0 is, how it relates to information literacy, and how it can be used in scholarly research.