ENGL419 - Major Authors - Walt Whitman
How do I...
find general background information on my topic including ebooks?
request items not available where I'm located (Interlibrary Loan)?
find criticisms and reviews of literary works (secondary literature)?
create a bibliography in MLA Style using RefWorks?
troubleshoot database access problems?
get help from a librarian?
Finding General Background Information
Use the Ketchikan area Library Catalog to find books and other materials which will provide comprehensive background information on your topic. A simple Word or Phrase search may be all you need to find a good book on your topic. Books by and about an author, such as Whitman, will result from the same search. It's helpful to narrow your search results to the UAS Ketchikan Campus Library on the right side of the search screen.
A list of titles that match your search terms will come up. When you find a promising title, click on the Details link to see more information on the book including Library of Congress Subject Headings (Subject terms). By clicking on these hyperlinked terms you can pull up additional books on your topic.
You'll also see information concerning which library in Ketchikan owns the book, its call number, and whether or not it's available for check out.Books – electronic copies
Some books are only available in electronic format, as e-books. You will find these books through a search in the Library Catalog, and you can link to the full-text of the book by linking through the
icon.. If a book shows up in the catalog as an electronic resource, there is usually no corresponding print copy available in town. If you are off-campus, you will get prompted by a proxy server to prove that you are currently affiliated with UAS, according to the terms of the institution’s licenses for e-books, and you will be asked for your UAS username and password.
E-books in the ebrary collection require that a viewing utility (ebrary Reader) be installed on a computer in order to view the contents. Most campus computers already have the utility installed. It’s a small program that you may install on home computers and personal laptops by clicking on the "Get ebrary Reader" icon when linking to ebrary from the Library Catalog.
Click on the title of a book and once it opens, you will see a table of contents and find your search terms in a colored font within the text.
The UAS Ketchikan Campus Library's website also has links to NetLibrary e-books which do not require a special viewing utility to display text other than the commonly available Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Place Interlibrary Loan Requests
The UAS Ketchikan Campus offers free Interlibrary Loan services for students, faculty, and staff. When you identify a book or journal article that you'd like to obtain but is not owned by a Ketchikan library, go to our Interlibrary Loan Home Page and use either the Book or Article request forms.
Articles will be emailed to you within a few days. Books need to be sent physically through the mail and may take up to two weeks, so begin your research early.
Finding Secondary Literature (criticism, reviews, etc.)
To find criticisms, try searching in one of the following online collections you have access to as students.
Although you are accessing the articles online, they have been printed in physical format as well and have
gone through some kind of editorial process. This means there is a much better chance that the content
will be more reliable than information found using Google.Try using our Databases by Subject page; then select the "Literature" to find the best collection for your topic.
Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost) - Large multidisciplinary database providing full text access to almost 4,700 scholarly publications including nearly 3,600 peer-reviewed journals.
JSTOR - An archive of entire full text runs of 19th and 20th century scholarly journals. Disciplines of journals include African American Studies, Anthropology, Biological Sciences, Botany, Business, Ecology, Education, History, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Statistics. Page images of journal contents may be viewed, printed, and downloaded.
Literature Resource Center Literature Resource Center - an excellent resource for full text information on authors (biographies), literary criticism, articles, and work overviews, additional resources.
Your result screen will have several tab options available to search, depending on how many results are available on your topic. In the example below there are five main category tabs to choose from, such as: Literary Criticism, Articles, and Work Overviews.
This pulls up a list of articles to choose from:
If you have problems accessing an online collection from off-campus visit our page on how to troubleshoot Known Database Access Problems and Improvements.
Don't Forget!
Always cite your sources. For help with citing your sources and formatting your bibliography check out the UAS Ketchikan Campus Library's list of citation guides on our Resources web page or try using RefWorks. Learn to cite your sources properly and thoroughly, so you that give due credit to others for their ideas, particular expression of ideas, and illustrations. Make proper distinctions between what are your own thoughts and words, and those that belong to others.
Create a Bibliography in MLA Style
Use RefWorks to organize your citations and to create your bibliography in whatever style your instructor requires.
Egan Library, the library at UAS Juneau, retains a license for bibliographic management software, RefWorks, which entitles those who are currently affiliated with UAS as student, faculty, or staff to create a personal account for a web-accessible database. Your individual RefWorks account allows you to
- create a detailed record with citation information for each source you consult;
- import records from most online databases (periodical indexes, catalogs);
- edit and enhance individual records to make the information more meaningful and complete;
- use a software utility while writing a paper to cite specific items from your own personal account.
Learning to use RefWorks takes some time but is worth the effort. Read this helpful guide. or watch the *excellent* RefWorks tutorial available on the RefWorks website to learn how to best use the program and ultimately save time.
- Ask a librarian for help the first time; it's much easier with help from an actual person!
Get Help
The UAS Ketchikan librarian is Kathleen Wiechelman. Her email address is kwiechelman@uas.alaska.edu, and her phone number is 907-228-4517.
