Garland Library Online Orientation

Introduction  This portion of the Online orientation is intended to help library users gain the basic knowledge and skills needed in order to effectively search Tusculum’s electronic databases.  Information provided in this portion of the orientation will cover basic searching of the InfoTrac I database.  In addition to being available via the link on Tusculum’s library database page, InfoTrac I is also available as part of the Tennessee Electronic Library.  Keep in mind that this tutorial is composed of screen shots, and any alerts or related information may not be current. Check the library’s website for current information.

Accessing the Database Begin by left clicking the Journals & Databases link on the library’s homepage

Choose a Location If you are on campus, you will choose the On Campus link. Choose the off campus link if you are searching from a location that is off campus. Off campus searches may require a user name and password, which are available from library staff

Two Ways to Access Now we see two ways to access the library’s databases. First is to look up a specific database using the A-Z listing. Second is by subject. For this tutorial, we are accessing the InfoTrac I database. Click on the G-L button to view databases that begin with the letters G-L.

InfoTrac I (Gale) From this page, scroll down until you see InfoTrac I (Gale). Left click on the database name to get to the database.

Searching the Database At this point, you have the opportunity to choose which specific databases within InfoTrac I you would like to search. Checking the box next to a database title will add that database to your search. Removing the checkmark will remove the database from the scope of your search. For the purposes of this demonstration, we will leave all of the databases checked. Select all database by left clicking the “Select All” check box.

Keyword Search Now we enter our search terms in the box at the top of the page. For this demonstration, a search will be performed using the terms “Personal Finance.”

Looking at Results Notice in the sidebar the headings that correspond to different types of material. Here is where you will need to make a decision regarding the types of materials that will meet your needs. Note that the books heading does NOT link to Tusculum library’s catalog, meaning that Tusculum may or may not have these books in the collection. If you want to find out if Tusculum owns a particular book, simply check the Tusculum online catalog for that particular title. If Tusculum does not own a copy, it is possible it can be requested for you via interlibrary loan.

Narrowing Your Search Select Academic Journals. Remember that Journals are often considered to be more reliable than magazines—especially when those Journals are peer reviewed. For the purposes of this orientation then, we will look specifically at results from academic journals. It is now possible to further limit results. First, let’s limit results to full text articles, as abstracts will not be very useful for class assignments. Note that limiting to full text articles removes some of the previous results. Click the check box to limit results to full-text.

Limiting Results Now, let’s limit to peer-reviewed results. Click the check box to limit results to peer-reviewed. Notice this reduces the number of results even further, leaving only the full text, more scholarly results. Once you have limited and retrieved your search results, simply select an article and click on its title.

Viewing Articles Some articles will give you the option to view in PDF format. The advantage to this is that you will get an electronic version of the article as it appeared in print—complete with pictures, illustrations, tables, and so on If you choose to print the PDF version of the article, be sure to use the Print icon in the PDF browser as the ‘File – Print’ procedure will not print a PDF.

Text Only If you do not want or need the article in this format, you can simply print the text of the article by left clicking on print.

Also, you could choose to the article to yourself. Notice you are given the option to include the PDF version of the article as an attachment to the where available.

Download Finally, you can simply download the article to your thumb drive.

Boolean Search In some cases, a Boolean search may be desirable. In order to perform a simple Boolean search, use connectors such as ‘and.’ For instance, we may want to search for personal finance and credit, in which case the ‘and’ acts as a Boolean modifier.

By choosing the academic journals heading, limiting first by full text and then by peer-reviewed entries, we can focus the search even further.

Conclusion  This concludes the research databases portion of the online orientation.  Please continue your orientation by completing the other modules provided.  You can practice the skills covered in this section by going to the library’s homepage at and performing a few searches on your own.