Gale Cengage Learning Research Material Tips to Database Navigation

There is a Gale Research Link on the SMS Library Web Page.

The collection of Gale Databases looks like the screen shot below The collection of Gale Databases looks like the screen shot below. Notice a couple of things: * The default (little radio button with green dot) is set to Selected Cross-Searchable Products * All Data bases are selected by default (green check in the Select All option) * You can launch your search from here OR select a specific database

Many Middle School students may want to scroll down to the Student Resource Center –Gold or the Junior Reference Collection database to begin their search. Spanish speaking patrons may prefer to search in the Informe database. Each database has a brief description of what it contains.

The table below gives an idea of what some of the different databases offer and the suggested age of the researcher.

This chart is designed as a comparison of 5 different databases This chart is designed as a comparison of 5 different databases. It reads like the following: ~ Anything contained in the Junior Reference collection is also in InfoTrac Junior and DISCovering collection. ~ Anything in InfoTrac Junior or DISCovering databases is in InfoTrac Student. ~ Student Resource Center Gold contains all the information in the other 4 databases

If you decide to conduct research in Student Resource Center Gold the page will open to a Basic Search window. You will also see a list of Popular Search Topics.

Basic Search allows you to conduct a straight foreword search in either a search box or by selecting from the Topics List. A Subject Search is from subject headings assigned to highly relevant articles and results in the smallest amount of hits. An Entire Document Search searches all index fields and yields the largest amount of hits. A Keyword Search searches: subject headings; article citations; and, the 1st 50 words of an article. The yield is a “happy medium” between the two search options above.

Subject Guide Searching is used when you want to browse a list of: people, topics and locations or narrow a broad topic. This search subdivides the topic yielding a list of subject headings related to the topic. For example: if you type in the word “China” you would get subdivisions of that topic

Advance Search provides search fields that are NOT available in other areas of the database Example of options available in the Keyword drop down menu. You can include the search options you want. You can also combine the search fields. The Document Type drop down option is also extremely comprehensive

If you choose to launch your search from the main window of Gale Databases there are some interesting features that are noteworthy. The sample below shows that the search is for the topic: Smithsonian

7038 results from Magazines are shown 7038 results from Magazines are shown. Clicking on Academic Journals would give you several thousand articles to read. There are 131 Books and 11,832 News stories as well as 186 Multimedia from which to select. Clicking on the title: Hubble parts’ new home will take you to the actual article.

A Big Concept to keep in mind is with regard to BOOKMARKED items. . . There are some features on the page to note. First of all, notice that the page is displaying magazine articles, because the Magazine tab is larger than the other ones, AND it is a different color. Also notice there is a Tools window that provides different options for printing, sending, getting help from the dictionary, etc. You can highlight words or small sections of the article and click on the Listen icon if you want to hear the text. A Big Concept to keep in mind is with regard to BOOKMARKED items. . . They are saved ONLY UNTIL you close the session. Once you close out, the marked items will be gone. If you want to save marked items for a period of time, then go up to the task bar and click on LOGIN so you can establish your own account.

For further assistance, come to the library for help.

ppt created by p.christensen February 2010