THE RESEARCH PROCESS: BOOKS AND BEYOND

By Myrtle S. Bolner

Many of the assignments you receive as part of your experience in higher education will require you to use the library for research. To do this you must become familiar with its collections and services. You may be familiar with your high school or public library. You will find, however, that the college or university library is more complex and often larger than the library with which you may be familiar. It probably provides a greater variety of services, and it may use a different scheme for classifying its materials. Over the last two decades technology has drastically changed the way we think of libraries. For many, the traditional notion of libraries as storehouses for books has been replaced by the image of a virtuallibrary-that is, a library in which all the information is available electronically. In this image, if a building exists at all it is only to house computers and to provide a laboratory in which librarians, acting as information specialists, are engaged in creating information in digital format. Neither the traditional notion of a library as a storehouse for books nor the image of a virtual library is entirely true today. However, there is a certain amount of validity in each of these images. The library you are using probably no longer has a card catalog. In most academic libraries the card catalog has been replaced by an online catalog. Many libraries have canceled paper subscriptions to indexes and abstracts, replacing them with electronic versions. Although libraries have gotten rid of their card catalogs in favor of online catalogs and subscribe to online databases and other resources in electronic format, they continue to retain and purchase materials in traditional formats: paper, microfiche, microfilm, video cassette, and the like. And while it is true that technology has improved the ways we retrieve information, it has also added levels of complexity. College and university libraries offer a variety of

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787290580
• ISBN13: 9780787290580
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Kendall Hunt Publishing
• Length: 417 Pages
• Weight: 5.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.9" x 1.0" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing Approach to Teaching Research

I began using this text in a senior capstone course in order to position students as future researchers. The text is filled with a multitude of helpful information and easy to follow applications. Of note are the historical information concerning various subjects like the birth of the Internet. Additionally, the exercises aid students in improving their skills as researchers. My students have raved about the text and have spread to word to other students that they must take the capstone course, partially because of the way the text allows for students to rethink what research is all about. I even have graduates who refer to chapters in the book when they call to talk to me about research opportunities. Moreover, the teacher's manual allows me to be creative and gauge how well students are progressing. I would find it hard to locate another textbook like this one. Thank you, editors for your vision.