Welcome!
Welcome to the Geography 100 Library Course Guide. This guide will be a helpful start for your research projects in your geography class. It contains a lot of helpful information that will be covered in your library instruction class for the course. Please feel free to also reach out to me using the “Email Me” button below my picture on the right hand side of the screen.
How To Start
When you begin a research project, it is a good idea to take a moment to reflect on your prior knowledge of the topic area. How much do you already know about this topic? How confident are you in moving forward with this topic?
In most cases, you will need to do a bit of research to get some general information on your topic. You can think of it like you are scaffolding a learning assignment for your students. To truly learn a new concept or skill, you need to create a solid base or foundation.
A great way to create this base is by conducting research in encyclopedias. Encyclopedias are arranged alphabetically and contain a general overview of a term or subject matter.
You can also access encyclopedias online through our reference databases like these:
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Search database of encyclopedias and reference sources within the Gale eBooks platform. For multidisciplinary research.
- Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window
Search reference sources across disciplines. Includes historical timelines, multimedia, selected magazine articles, notable quotations, and a dictionary and thesaurus.
Locating Print Sources at Milne Library
Search & Discover provides sweeping access to books, ebooks, articles, movies, music, and more through a user-driven platform supporting your research interests. You can use Search & Discover without signing in. However, to access e-books, you will need to sign in when prompted.
There are two main ways to use Search & Discover.
Everything allows you to search simultaneously for books, ebooks, articles, movies, music, and more. You may use keywords, titles, authors, or phrases. Refine your results using the choices on the left. For example, if you want to discover the newest results then select Sort by. Explore Resource Type, also on the left, to get a sense of the various materials available to you.
Library Catalog is commonly used to search the physical collections of the James M. Milne Library, including ebooks, by an author’s name or a book’s title. You may also use keywords to search the library catalog, which contains the table of contents for many records. Subject headings are included in keyword searching and are assigned to all library catalog holdings.
While Everything and Library Catalog are two of the main searching functions in Search & Discover, there are others available for use. Child Collection, Course Reserves, EMC Media, NY State Collection, Reference, Special Collections (SCC), SUNY Catalog, and Young Adult (YA) are all options to choose from. These collections can be searched exclusively by selecting them in the top menu. For example, selecting Child Collection will include results only from that collection.
Below you will find a short video on how to use remote checkout to physically retrieve an item from the library this semester.
Locating Online Resources
Electronic articles can be searched through our databases. There are some general databases and some subject specific databases. To access the databases, click on the database link on the library homepage. You can then browse through them alphabetically, or browse by subject (i.e., geography, environmental sustainability, communications, etc.).
Below you will find a list of databases that will be helpful for your current assignment. It is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good place to start.
- Gale Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Search articles from a database of scholarly journals and other trusted periodicals. Best for academic research.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Full text for about 8,500 periodicals including over 7,300 peer-reviewed journals across most areas of academic study as well as indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 magazines and journals. Coverage is from 1887 to the present.
- Gale OneFile: Environmental Studies & Policy This link opens in a new window
Search for information about environmental issues with diverse perspectives from the scientific community, policymakers, and corporate interests.
- Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexing for over 2200 journals in agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, geography, pollution and environmental law. Provides full-text for over 900 journals. Coverage is from 1888 to the present.
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new window
Addresses human impacts on the environment. Offers indexing and abstracts for about 300,000 records. Some full-text. Coverage is from about 1915 to the present.
Can be used for course content: Extensive full-text content. - Nature: international weekly journal of science
One of the world's most important scientific journals. Full text coverage is from 2006-present.
- Gale OneFile: News This link opens in a new window
Seaarch major U.S. and international newspapers online to search articles instantly by title, headline, date, or other fields.
- Newspaper Source PlusIncludes over 850 full-text U.S. and international newspapers as well as over 800,000 television and radio news transcripts.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowOffers more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790 across all content types.
Fact-Checking Websites
It’s important to remember that evaluating sources is crucial for anything that you use. Websites and News Organizations are two types of sources you will want to pay extra attention to. Websites can be written by anyone, anywhere; so, you will want to make sure you are evaluating them properly. News Organizations can range from factual, to extremely biased, to fake news.
Below you will find a wide range of resources that can help you evaluate websites and news organizations.
- CRAAP TestThe CRAAP Test is a list of questions to help you evaluate the information you find. Different criteria will be more or less important depending on your situation or need.
- Fact CheckFactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. They are a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that works to monitor the factual accuracy of anything political.
- Media Bias ChartA great visual image that shows which way certain news organizations tend to lean in their biases.
- PolitifactPolitiFact is a nonpartisan fact-checking website to sort out the truth in American politics. It is a project of the Tampa Bay Times, a publishing company based in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Tampa Bay Times is owned by The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for journalists.
- SnopesA great resource that began in 1995 with the founder working to debunk urban legends. It is now one of the leading resources on the World Wide Web for exposing what parts of viral stories are true and what parts are false.
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Online Help
Librarians are available to help in several ways:
- Call the Reference Desk at 607-436-2722
- E-mail a question to a librarian and receive a response
- Request a Research Consultation to meet individually (and virtually) with a librarian
- Chat with a Librarian using the Chat Box below
Peer-Reviewed
What does peer-reviewed mean in context to journal articles? Peer-review is a process that many scholarly journals undertake to evaluate the quality of the material being submitted. When an article is submitted to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, several impartial reviewers (who are experts in the subject matter) assess for accuracy, and the validity of the research methodology and procedure.
Citation
It is important to include appropriate citation in your paper. The library has a guide that can help you accurately cite your resources. You can locate it on the library homepage by clicking the "Citing Sources" link, or you can click on the link below.