How to Find Information in the Library Tutorial: Module 3: Online References

• Identify and use library online reference tools. 

This module focuses on Shake Library’s online reference sources that are useful for college research and writing assignments. What are reference sources?

“Reference sources are authoritative works that help you locate information about people, facts, and ideas. These sources can help you find the date of an important event, major achievements of an individual or organizations, or definition of a term or concept” (Pressley, Lauren, and Audra Eagle Yun. “Reference Resource’s.” Research Like a Librarian. Wake Forest University. cloud.lib.wfu.edu/blog/research-like-a-librarian/reference-resources/.)

For this module we will look at two online reference sources: Britannica Academic and CREDO Reference. All of our online reference resources can be found on our Databases A-Z page.

Remember: If you are off-campus, make sure you're logged into VUX before using any of the databases.

Britannica Academic is the online version of the traditional Encyclopedia Britannica.  Its subject strength is in the Humanities (Art and Literature) and History, but it also has increased its focus to include Science and Technology.

When you do a search in Britannica Academic, your default search is for articles. These entries also give you links to:

• articles to help you delve deeper into a subject
• videos (when available) to help you understand the subject when presented in a different way
• images to help you better visualize a hard to understand concept.
   

Primary Sources are documents that are from the person or time period/event that the articles discuss. A good example of a primary source is the Declaration of Independence.

At the bottom of the Britannica Academic homepage, you will find the Merriam-Webster dictionary search box. This feature will give you a detailed description of what a word means as well as alternative words or search terms you can use.

CREDO Reference contains a large quantity of searchable reference books on many research topics.

Once you do a search, you will often find:

1. An encyclopedia definition at the top of the page.
2. To the right of the search results, options to limit your results in a variety of ways, including the Length of the article. You can limit your results by clicking on “All Lengths” and choosing the length you want. Longer articles will be more substantial.
   • You can find out how long an article is by looking at the number of words listed, which is located in the middle of the result, after the preview of the encyclopedic entry.
3. Underneath each article title, you’ll find the name of the reference book it’s from.
4. On the right side of the screen; you’ll also see a graph of related concepts. Clicking on one of these concepts will take you to a list of results for that concept if you want to further your research. 

Please note: Not every search you make in Credo Reference will have an encyclopedic definition listed at the top of the page or a related concepts graph.

Next: Module 3 Quiz