23 Things Week 5: LFPL's Research Tools

As a page, I don't currently get a whole lot of opportunities to assist patrons with in-depth research inquiries. But I'd still like to know as much as possible about the LFPL's database offerings, in part because I want to be prepared in case I do have to help with a reference question... and also, a little more selfishly, because I just plain miss working in reference, and investigating databases as we've been asked to do this week helps me get back into that "reference" mindset.




But enough about me - on to the databases!

Question 10b

I began by selecting "Newspapers" on the "Research Tools" page. I chose to search the third publication listed, the Courier-Journal, because I know that it's a local paper likely to have published the obituary of a Louisville resident. The resulting search page appeared to be for a general search of ProQuest Newspapers, but I went ahead and enclosed the name I was searching in quotation marks and specified a date range that began with the date of death and allowed a few months afterward to catch any later mentions of the name. I also specified that I only wanted full text results.

This search resulted in a single hit; thankfully, it was the obituary I was looking for. It was published on March 18, 2008, and specified that Betty Jean McMichael had four sons.

Question 10c

For this question, I clicked on the "Journal/Magazine/Newspaper Search" link at the right hand side of the Research Tools page.

I did not uncover a journal called Telos by using the "Journal/Magazine/Newspaper Search" option; I tried more than once, but it did not turn up. However, just to check, I went to Academic Search Premier and looked for articles under that title, and did find that we have access to abstracts of articles published in Telos via that database; it appears, however, that we don't have full-text access to the journal's contents. (I will definitely be asking my coworkers if they came up with the same information when we discuss our 23 Things progress!)

The British Journal for the History of Philosophy was much easier to find using the Journal/etc. search; it appears that the LFPL has full-text access via EBSCO, albeit on a 12-month delay.

Clinical Medicine and Research was also easy to find, and is also available via EBSCO, with no delay in full-text access.

Question 11a

I selected "Business & Money" from the list of categories on the Research Tools page, and proceeded to "cheat" by searching the text on the page for "Morningstar." I'm glad I did, since it took me to the link for the Morningstar Investment Research Center database. Since I don't have a whole lot of investing experience (okay, none at all), I did not know anything about this resource. But I was able to select the "Funds" tab, search the name of the fund, and find all of the requested information:

Manager: Duane F. Kelly
Stewardship Grade: B overall
Overall Morningstar Rating: Four stars

...interesting stuff!

Question 11b

I again used the Journal/etc. search, this time to locate Consumer Reports. I selected the link to LFPL's EBSCO access and then the link to its full text. From here, I was able to do an advanced search for "LCD TVs" and restrict the date range to 1/2008 - 12/2009. This turned up a total of 9 articles mentioning LCD TVs, the most recent of which was an article from 12/2009 published in Consumer Reports Volume 74, Issue 12.

Question 11c

The "Business & Money" category seemed like a good place to start here, but I admit that I relied on the tips we were given after doing some initial exploring and realizing that many of the listed resources seemed like good choices.

After spending a lot of time changing settings and adjusting my search, I have to admit that I could benefit from some training on Business Reference USA. While many of its options seem straightforward enough at first glance, I was clearly doing something wrong! I had a hard time with this question, and I'm going to be taking some extra time to get a bit more familiar with this resource.