The most important thing to know when you're searching the databases is that databases do not work like Google.
You can put a whole search phrase into Google like concealed guns on college campuses and get about 339,000 results. That's because Google breaks up your search sentence into keywords, and searches for pages that contain some or all of those words, in no particular order.
The databases don't work like that! If you put that same search phrase into the databases, you might get only a few results, if any:
This doesn't mean there aren't articles in the database about concealed guns on college campuses, only that we're not putting in our search words the right way. If you put a search phrase like that into the databases, you won't get any results, because unlike Google, the databases are searching for that exact phrase.
So what's the solution? Think in keywords!
Pick out the most important keywords in your search phrase. In this case, the most important keywords are:
Once you have a short list of keywords, you'll want to brainstorm as many as possible. Think of synonyms for your keywords, related words or phrases, related concepts, or more specific versions.
For example, you could think of related or more specific terms for guns: pistol, handgun, weapon. Or you could think of related concepts: license, gun control, campus violence, school shooting.
No one combination of keywords will bring you back everything on a topic. You may have to do several searches in the database using different combinations of keywords to make sure you're not missing some resources.
Scroll down for tips on combining keywords for an effective database search.
Ever heard of Boolean Searching, Boolean Operators or Boolean Logic? Don't worry if you haven't!
All "Boolean" refers to are specific ways of combining keywords using the words and, or, and not. It's a way to expand or limit the number of search results you get in the database.
Combining keywords with or means that either one word, or the other word, or both words can be included in your search results. This is a good way to expand your search result to similar words: "guns or firearms."
Combining keywords with not means to exclude a word from your search results. So if you want information about guns, but not a specific type of gun, you could search "guns not muskets."
However, the most useful Boolean operator is and. If you search the database using a keyword, and you get way too many results, adding another keyword and connecting it to the first one with and is a great way to narrow down your results.
That's because you're placing more conditions on the search. You're saying, "I only want articles that have all of the following terms: 'guns' and 'campus.'" And so the pool of articles that fits those conditions is much smaller than if you had just searched using one of those keywords.
We can understand this concept using a Venn diagram:
The blue circle represents all the sources that contain the phrase "guns." The yellow circle represents all the sources that contain the word "campus." The middle of the Venn diagram, where both circles overlaps, represents all those articles that contain both the words "guns" and the word "campus."
You can see that that area is smaller than either of the two circles, so you have a smaller pool of articles to have to sort through. If you do this search in the database, here's what it looks like:
https://www.sanjac.edu/library| Central Library: 281-476-1850 | Generation Park Campus: 281-998-6150 x8133 | North Library: 281-459-7116 | South Library: 281-998-6150 ext. 3306