A Guide to Library Research Methods - Softcover

Mann, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195049446 ISBN 13: 9780195049442

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1990

Synopsis

With today's information explosion, students, job hunters, professionals, and researchers urgently need more than just an annotated bibliography to guide them through the bewildering maze of resources now available. Responding to this need, Thomas Mann--a reference librarian at the Library of Congress--offers us A Guide to Library Research Methods.
Introducing a distinctive, new approach to the fact-finding process, this book provides not only an exceptional overview of the range of material that exists, but, more importantly, a detailed discussion of both the advantages and disadvantages of using each type of source. Mann's problem-solving technique emphasizes seven different research methods that researchers can apply to any inquiry. Used as a set of easily remembered "mental pegs," these methods enable individuals to get further into a subject more quickly, with less wasted effort. The seven research methods described include subject heading inquiries, systematic browsing, key word and citation searches, use of bibliographies, computer searches, and talking to people.
A Guide to Library Research Methods should be required reading for every individual who has ever asked the question, "Where should I start looking to find out about this?"

About this title

About the Author

About the Author:
Thomas Mann is a general reference librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Genuine learning should obviously be a broadening rather than a limiting experience; and in doing research the most important lesson to learn is that any source is fair game. One should always go to wherever the information needed is most likely to be, and very often this will be in someone's head rather than in a book. (Remember, too, though, that you can travel "full circle" from talking to an expert to get back into literature-for usually the expert will know the best written sources, and can thereby offer valuable shortcuts that will make library research much more efficient.)

While most researchers have had, at one time or another, experiences of serendipitous discovery in a library, many of them regard such experiences as more due to luck than to the system. But it is actually the system that is working in such cases-and if you are aware of this, you can exploit that system consciously and deliberately rather than haphazardly.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0195049446
• ISBN 13: 9780195049442
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224