Research Guides: Human Services Research Basics: Find Information (Gather Sources)

Using & Finding Books

Why Use Books:

Use books to read broad overviews and detailed discussions of your topic. You can also use books to find primary sources, which are often published together in collections.

Where Do I Find Books?

You'll use the library catalog to search for books, ebooks, articles, and more.

OneSearch (Library Catalog)
OneSearch provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more.

What if MJC Doesn't Have What I Need?

If you need materials (books, articles, recordings, videos, etc.) that you cannot find in the library catalog, use our interlibrary loan service.

Interlibrary Loan
Borrowing materials from other libraries is simple and free.

Finding eBooks

If you need a book when the library is closed, no worries. The MJC Library owns thousands of eBooks that you can use at any time of the day or night.

Here is a little video showing you how to find eBooks @MJC:

Where to Find eBooks

You'll find eBooks in OneSearch (Library Catalog) and in some of our library databases

OneSearch (Library Catalog)
OneSearch provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more.

Library Databases for Finding eBooks

To connect to library databases from off campus you'll need to login just like you do for email or Canvas

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Use this database for preliminary reading as you start your research. You'll learn about your topic by reading authoritative topic overviews on a wide variety of subjects.
What's included: Gale eBooks is comprised of subject, specialized encyclopedias with articles written by scholars and experts.
eBook Collection: EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Use this database to search our collection of thousands of eBooks the MJC Library owns through EBSCOhost. These books can be a great place to start your research.
What's included: Thousands of eBooks covering a wide variety of topics.
World Folklore and Folklife This link opens in a new window
Covers broad subjects like literature, gender roles, and cultural studies by exploring international topics like celebrations, rituals, myths, religion, beliefs, urban legends, music, dance, holidays, food, tales, and traditional arts and crafts

Using & Finding Articles

Why Use Databases:

The MJC Library subscribes to many databases filled with authoritative articles, book chapters, research reports, statistics, and more from thousands of respected publications. You can search these article databases either by topic or for a specific article.

Using the Library's article databases ensures that you're using sources your instructors expect you to use, and you won't have to cull through millions of unrelated Web pages that will waste your time and energy.

____________________________________

All of these resources are free for you because you are a student at MJC. If you're working from anywhere off campus, you'll need to sign in just like you do for your email and Canvas courses.

Find Articles:

The MJC Library subscribes to many databases filled with authoritative articles, book chapters, research reports, statistics, and more from thousands of respected publications.

Once you click this link to our Articles & Databases page, be sure to scroll down to see the Business Databases I have displayed for you.

Use Google Scholar for Web Resources

You don't want to wade through millions of Web pages. By using a few tricks, you can focus your searches relatively easily to those authoritative, reliable sources you want to use.

Use key search terms - Use the same search terms you used successfully to find books and articles.
Know your search tool - Use advanced search features to control your search. For example you can limit your search in Google to just search government or educational Web sites by limiting to a specific domain. Learn more at Google for Researchers.
Use search tools you can trust - Google Scholar indexes scholarly literature on the Web.

You can search Google Scholar below: