Library Orientation for College Students

Finding Books in Brighton Library Catalog

• Searching for books
• Navigating the catalog
• Requesting / Renewing books

Finding Articles

• What are Indexes?
• Which indexes are most relevant? (handout)
• Starting Places
  • Wilson Select Plus (handout)
  • General Reference Center Gold
• Using Indexes
• Demo

Finding Web Sites

• What is the Web?
• Search Engines:
  • Directories (categorize websites by subjects): Yahoo, Go
  • Search Engines (search text of documents): Google, AltaVista
  • Multi-engine (search multiple search engines at once): IxQuick, Metacrawler
• Basic search tips
  • "Will Smith"
  • "Will Smith" +lyrics
  • "Will Smith" -lyrics
• Evaluating what you find
  • Authority
  • Bias
  • Currency
  • Accuracy
    • Two examples:
      • http://www.martinlutherking.org
      • http://www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/mlk/
      • http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/

For Further Assistance

• Your college or university library, website and reference desk
• Brighton District Library's Information Desk, phone # 810-229-6571, ext. 227
• If online contact Brighton District Library's Ask-a-librarian - http://www.brighton.lib.mi.us/ask.html
• Michigan Electronic Library - http://www.mel.org
• Librarian's Index to the Internet - http://www.lii.org