ENG 101: College English I

Visit the Library 101 group of Research Guides to learn about checking out books, locating electronic resources, and the departments available in the Lyman Beecher Brooks Library.

Click the links below to jump to the full guides or read some of the excerpts in the boxes on this page:

Main Collection:

• Circulating Collection:
  • Located on the North side of the second and third floor, this collection houses tens of thousands of books with subject coverage across all disciplines.
  • Graphic Novels and DVD Videos are located in free-standing shelves located on the second floor and first floor respectively.
     
• Reference/Periodicals Collection:
  • Located on the North side of the third floor of the library, the Reference and Periodicals collection houses reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories and more as well as individual and bound print volumes of periodicals such as magazines and academic journals.
  • This collection is not open for browsing and all items are for in-library use only. To use items in this collection, patrons must request items from the Information Services desk on the first-floor.
     

Special Collections:

• Herbert A. Marshall Collection:
  • Located on the South side of the Lyman Beecher Brooks Library, the Herbert A. Marshall Collection maintains a special collection by and about African-American history, folklore, and culture. It was named in honor of Dr. Herbert A. Marshall, on April 15, 1997, who was Professor Emeritus of Continuing Education at Norfolk State University.
  • This collection is not open for browsing and has specific borrowing rules. To use items in this collection, patrons must request items from the Herbert A. Marshall Collection from the Circulation/Reserves Desk on the first-floor.
     
• Juvenile Collection: 
  • Located on the North side of the first floor of the library, the Juvenile collection houses a range of fiction and nonfiction material ranging from picture books through Young Adult (YA) books.
     
• Harrison B. Wilson Archives and African Art Gallery:
  • Located on the South side of the second floor of the library, The Harrison B. Wilson Archives is the repository of the non-current, official records of the University, its organizations, students and faculty. In keeping with the University’s mission of actively involving itself in the community and addressing the special needs of African-Americans, the archives also collects and preserves the historical records of African-Americans in Virginia and makes them available to students and other researchers.
  • The African Art Gallery at Norfolk State University collects and exhibits more than 700 works of art and artifacts from 13 African countries, including Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria.

Most of the search boxes that you will encounter on the Lyman Beecher Brooks Library website and resources like databases will offer a basic keyword search by default. This kind of search box is common because of its ease of use and familiarity to common search boxes like Google, but it is important to remember that the results that you get from a keyword search can vary in quality due to the wide spectrum of sources and can often produce an enormous results list that would be impractical to read through.

An example of a basic search box.

Remember these limitations when using a basic keyword search and be prepared to clean up your results with filters as shown in the next box:

• This is broad type of search will look for your search terms anywhere and everywhere from article titles to tables of contents, author names, subjects, and beyond.
  • For example, a keyword search of "Brooks" intended to find books written by an author with the last name Brooks might return books written by authors with the last name Brooks, but it will also return results for articles about the subject of brooks (the natural formation, a kind of small stream).
     
• In addition to mixing up authors and subjects, keyword searches often include a feature where the search engine will suggest alternative terms to the one that you used and you may see the question "Did you mean:...?" or the statement "Showing results for ..." with the substituted word shown. You may also experience "fuzzy search" which will look for your search term with multiple spellings even if you did not type in any alternatives, such as a search for "theater" showing results for both "theater" and "theatre".
   
• Sometimes a basic keyword search can help you find the exact item that you are looking for or related items that are still useful. This can be a great opportunity to use some advanced search techniques as shown on the following guide: Library 101 - Advanced Research Techniques
   

Keyword searches can still be a great tool, especially when combined with filtering as described in the next box, but you can also improve your search techniques with some additional skills in the advanced research technique guide: Library 101 - Advanced Research Techniques

Effectively using filters is an important skill to develop and use alongside all kinds of searches, but especially important for keyword searches.

Filtering results in research databases and library catalogs is the same idea as filtering your shopping search results in Amazon. Filters let you restrict the larger pool of results to those that are likely to be useful to you.

These are some filters that are common in many databases and can be very helpful in making a large batch of results more useful:

• Peer Reviewed / Scholarly
  • Limits your results to only peer-reviewed/scholarly content. This is a very helpful tool to make sure that your resources meet the requirements of your assignment if your professor requires peer-reviewed resources.
     
• Full Text / Content I Can Access / Unlocked  / Open Access  / Free 
  • These filters limit your results to only materials that you have full access to, i.e. a full length book, article, etc.
  • Without this kind of filter, your results list will often include index or abstract results that only present a description of the resource, but not the full material.
     
• Item / Document type: book, ebook, article, journal, podcast, audiobook, DVD, case study, conference paper, etc.
  • Whether you are looking for a particular item type or just need to break up your results list into smaller pieces, filtering by item/document type can help you make your results list more manageable.
     
• Publication date
  • For many assignments, professors will require that your sources are current or that they were published within the last 3, 5, or 10 years. Carefully check your assignment for the publication date requirement for your assignment and use this filter to make sure that all of your sources comply with the limitation.
     
• Language
  • Many databases include results in multiple languages. If you do not want results in multiple languages, use this filter to limit to a single language or selection of languages to meet your needs.
     
• Subject
  • Use the Subject filter to limit your results to the subject area that is appropriate for your research. This is very helpful for differentiation when your search term has multiple meanings. For example, if you are using the search term "Tesla", you can use the Subject filter to differentiate between resources about Nikola Tesla and the electric car manufacturer.