Understand your assignment

Your library research will be much more successful, and much less frustrating, if you fully understand your assignment.  Ask your instructor to clarify if you don’t understand.

Develop your topic

Knowing what you’re looking for will help you decide where to look.  Learning how to develop a good topic is one of the most important skills to learn for successful college research.

Search for books in library catalogs

The WSU Libraries catalog is called Griffin and is available from the library website.  When you don’t know the specific book you’re looking for, it is best to start with a keyword search.  To learn some advanced searching techniques, ask a librarian!  We love to show the tricks of our trade.  You can also use the catalog to locate videos, DVDs, microfilm, and other materials. You can also use the catalog to find out which journals we subscribe to, but NOT to locate individual articles within those journals.

Search for articles in library databases

Learning to find useful journal articles is a very important skill to learn.  Library databases are listed on our website.  Remember, most databases do NOT include the full text of the article.  Instead, they include citations (the author, title, volume and page number information) and abstracts (short summaries of articles).  If you need help tracking down the full article for which you have a citation, talk to a librarian.  We can show you how to locate the article using the citation information.  If you need help choosing a database to search, don’t hesitate to ask!

Order books and articles from other libraries, if necessary

Sometimes you’ll find the perfect article or book only to discover that it isn’t available from WSU Vancouver.  Never fear!  Using our interlibrary loan and document delivery services will allow you to get almost anything you need.  Talk to a librarian to find out how!  Books generally take from 3-5 days and articles can take as little as 48 hours.

Repeat!

Remember, research is a process.  You’ll need to do many searches in the course of your research as you learn more about your topic. 

Last but not least...

Never, ever feel uncomfortable asking for help in the WSU Vancouver Library.  We want to help you learn to use the resources here and make your college research as painless as possible!

Research is like a spiral staircase.  You do not proceed in a straight line toward your goal.  Instead, research requires that you loop back, refining your topic and your search strategy as you proceed, each time getting closer to your goal.

Reference Desk
Have a question?  Contact the Reference Desk for help.

Contact Info:
360-546-9686
library@vancouver.wsu.edu
Send Email