Although Google and Yahoo may be the common places to look for information to write and research papers, students have many other resources at their disposal.
Electronic Library & Information Environment (ELIE) contains collections of articles and subject-specific resources where, “students can access news, research tips, interesting facts…and other helpful tools,” all available through slcc.edu.
Nelson T. Emeric is the Supervisor of Circulation and Library Access Services at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus in the Markosian Library. Emeric teaches and helps students understand and use the many resources available to them in the four school libraries (South City, Jordan, Miller and Taylorsville Redwood) and online through the ELIE system.
Emeric has been teaching information literacy training courses to SLCC students since 2005. In addition he has been conducting “mini-seminars” since early 2009 to inform students about the online databases available that are filled with credible sources and articles to help minimize the time required searching for credible sources through Google.
A database is organized information in a form that is accessible by computer. Emeric teaches students how to access and use these databases effectively to gather and organize information on any given subject they are writing on.
“The benefit of these databases is the peace of mind that the information is current and accurate,” Emeric said.
SIRS Knowledge Source is an online database that has full text articles discussing the pros and cons to social, health or business related issues. The website displays a topic overview, timelines and graphs and a note organizer for students to compile information. In addition, the web page shows a list of the newspaper and magazine articles that students can select and email to themselves in order to sift through unwanted information usually presented on big search engines.
JSTOR is another database that has scholarly articles on many subjects. This website lets students search by their specific topic. JSTOR takes excerpts from books and articles that are sorted by relevance to the student’s subject, allowing them to read right from the words of a credible source. Also, this website gives the student a reference to where they found the particular article and how to cite it in a bibliography.
SLCC students can access these databases and many other resources at any of the school libraries when they click the library link on the SLCC homepage. Then they can click the databases link in the upper right hand corner of ELIE’s homepage. If a student wants to access ELIE from home he or she will need the student number and password just like in the library. These student recourses are also accessible at any college or university in the state of Utah.
“Students should know what’s out there,” Emeric stresses. By discovering these online tools in the general education level, “They [students] will be extremely advantaged by being exposed to these databases for their upper division courses.