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EDUC 5010 Graduate Study Seminar

Introduction to graduate study.

Library Overview

Using the Library

This page will give you a quick overview of the library and its resources.

This discussion is divided into the broad categories of the print collection and the research databases.

The Print Collection

Searching the Catalog

The catalog is your window to the library’s print collection.

On the main page and in research guides, you will see a widget from which you can search the catalog:

Advanced Search

You can also navigate directly to the catalog and search from there by selecting the Catalog option on the navigation bar at the top of the page.

The catalog is the access point for the print collection housed in the J. W. Martin Library, but it can also search our collections of electronic books, our research databases, a selection of open-access resources on the web, and library holdings from around the world.

Variety of Collections

The J.W. Martin Library contains several collections including over 100,000 books, thousands of print and eJournals, and over 70,000 eBooks. The library also houses an archives of historical documents related to the university and to Northwestern Oklahoma. All of these sources are available for your research.

The items you find in the catalog may be in a variety of formats including print, electronic, microform, CD, and DVD.

Circulating Materials

Materials that you can check out and take with you are said to be circulating. The J. W. Martin Library has open stacks, so users may browse, locate, retrieve, and check out books on their own. However, if you can’t find what you want, the faculty and staff of the library will help.

Call Numbers & Location

The library is organized using the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The Dewey Decimal System organizes library materials by discipline or field of study like philosophy, social science, science, technology, and history. The scheme is made up of ten classes, each divided into ten divisions, which are further subdivided into ten sections.

Example

  • 500: Natural sciences and mathematics
    • 510: Mathematics
      • 516: Geometry
        • 516.3: Analytic geometries
          • 516.37: Metric differential geometries
            • 516.375: Finsler Geometry

A book on metric differential geometries would have a call number of 516.37.

The call number is usually on the spine of the book, and books are arranged on the shelves based on call numbers. Because call numbers correspond with subject matter, other books nearby will be on the same subject.

You don’t need to memorize the system. Since books are shelved in numerical order, you can find any book once you know its call number. If you have difficulty, ask a librarian for help.

Additional Notes on Location

  • Biographies are marked with a B on their spine labels and are arranged alphabetically by subject on the north and east walls of the library.

  • The reference collection is on the west side of the first floor, just past the student computers.

  • The print periodicals are also on the west side of the first floor.

  • The children’s literature collection is on the northwest corner of the main floor.

  • The Tyler Collection and archives are on the south balcony.

Create an Account

Your account with our catalog system, WorldCat, is separate from your university account.

From your WorldCat account, you can see what you have checked out and renew your items. For instructions on setting up your account, follow this link:

The Research Databases

The research databases are your primary source for peer-reviewed articles.

From the navigation bar at the top of this screen, select Databases, which will open a dropdown menu with several options:

  • Select See the Complete List to see all of the available databases in alphabetical order

  • Select About the Research Databases to see useful links and learn about the databases in more detail.

  • Select an academic subject to see a list of only the most relevant databases.

Available content varies from one database to the next and ranges from books to popular magazines to conference proceedings to radio transcripts, but the databases you will most frequently use contain the full text of peer-reviewed journal articles.

About EBSCOhost

Most (not all) of our databases are curated by the company EBSCO. These databases are available through the online platform EBSCOhost; for that reason, EBSCO databases look similar and have similar functionality.

You can browse the EBSCO databases through the link below or see our full set of databases on the A–Z Databases page:

Searching in EBSCOhost

After conducting a search in an EBSCOhost database, you can usually adjust your results using the sidebar to the left, which contains options for limiting by date range, resource type, geographical location, and more:

Figure 1
Example of Limiters in an EBSCO Database
Detail of the sidebar in an EBSCO database.

Note that you can often limit to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals and to Full Text. The former will show you results only from scholarly periodicals (keep in mind that it will exclude books, including scholarly books), and the second will limit to resources available in their entirety (as opposed to citations and abstracts).

Subject Terms and Journal Titles

Each EBSCOhost database has a navigation bar at the top of the screen.

Figure 2
The Navigation Bar in an EBSCO Database
Options on the navigation bar of an EBSCO database.

This bar contains several options, but we will discuss only two:

  1. Publications will allow you to search or browse all the publications available in that database. Use this if you want to see a specific journal (e.g., Journal of Research in Childhood Education or Psychological Research) rather than search for individual articles.

  2. The option labeled Subject Terms or Thesaurus or something similar will allow you to search for or browse official terms describing the subjects that the database covers. By using these subject terms, you can craft a more specific search, especially if you don’t know the best words to describe your topic.

Create an Account

The companies that host our databases, EBSCO included, maintain personal accounts for their users. With a My EBSCO account, you can save and keep track of articles you are using. You will also need the account to download eBooks.

Select Sign In from the navigation bar, and you should see a screen like this:

Figure 3
The EBSCO Log-in Screen
Screenshot of the EBSCO login screen.

You can create a new account with EBSCO or use an existing Google account.

For more information about creating personal accounts with our content hosts or other affiliates, see the Account Help page: