Introduction

This section of the CommWiki will help students taking courses in the School of Communication Studies get started with library research. It profiles different kids of useful communication reference tools such as encyclopedias and dictionaries, helps you search for books and journals using ALICE, our online library catalog, and also explains how to use several full-text article databases that give you access to material you can't find online. If you are new to the library and need some general information about it you can Ask a Librarian or you can visit the Library Info section of our website.

Contact Your Librarian

• Jessica Hagman, Reference and Instruction Librarian
• Office: Alden Library 206
• Phone: (740) 593-2697
• E-Mail: hagman@ohio.edu
• AIM/Yahoo: jhagmanohio

Jessica is the subject librarian for the School of Communication Studies and as well as Media Arts and Studies and Information and Telecommunication Systems. Jessica is available for one-on-one research help and purchase suggestions for books and journals. She also teaches library research sessions for both undergraduates and graduates.

Reference Sources

Reference sources such as encyclopedias or dictionaries are valuable tools for starting your research, especially if you are unfamiliar with your topic. The following is a list of communication related reference sources available from the OU Libraries, both print and electronic sources. Click on the link for more information about that source.

• African Americans in the Media Today
• Dictionary of Mass Communication and Media Research
• Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies
• Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media
• Encyclopedia of Communication and Information - Available online!
• Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications
• Encyclopedia of Media and Politics
• International Encyclopedia of Communication - Available online!
• The Practical Media Dictionary
• Webster's Dictionary of Media and Communications

Books

• Use ALICE to find books. ALICE also contains information about DVDs, magazines, newspapers, journals and government documents owned by the library. For help using ALICE, see the Comm Wiki page on using the library catalog or the OU Libraries Finding Books pages.
• When searching in ALICE, one way to find information more efficiently is to use subject headings. Subject headings are standardized terms assigned to items in the catalog to indicate what the item is about and link it to other items on the same topic. If you have found an item you like, click on the subject heading in the ALICE record to see more items on the same topic. See the example to the right:
  

  

  ALICE Subject Headings
  . Some useful subject headings might be:
  • Interpersonal Communication
  • Mass Media -- Social Aspects
  • Communication in Medicine
  • Mass Media -- Political Aspects -- United States
• If a book is located at the Annex or another campus library click the to request that item be sent to Athens for you to pick-up.
• If a book is not available from the OU Libraries, or is checked out, use the to look for a copy from another Ohio Link library. As long as there is an available copy in Ohio Link, you can place a request for a copy. It will be delivered to Alden in about 3-4 business days for you to pick up at the floor circulation desk.
• If you cannot find an available copy of the item in ALICE or Ohio Link, use the Inter Library Loan service where you can request books.
• If you have any questions about finding books in any of these three categories, feel free to contact Jessica, stop by the Learning Commons Reference Desk, or give us a call at (740) 593-2699.

Finding Articles

To find articles, you will need to use an article database. These databases contain information about articles, the way ALICE contains information about books and journals. InfoTree contains links to all of the databases provided by the OU Libraries, including a section on communications. The following are some databases that are particularly useful for communication studies. Click the link to see the Comm Wiki page about the database, which includes more information on how to search it.

• Communication and Mass Media Complete: Indexes 300 journals comprehensively and another 100 selectively. Includes the full text for nearly 200 journals, many from their first issue, as far back as 1915. See the complete list of journals covered.
• ComAbstracts: "comprehensive source of information about communication related publications on a world-wide scale." It goes beyond the communication literature and covers "literature in other disciplines relevant to communication researchers." (CSA Communication Abstracts page). Coverage dates to 1977.
• Communication Abstracts: ComAbstracts, a project of the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, is an article database providing comprehensive coverage of the "first line scholarship" in communication disciplines. The list of journals currently covered in ComAbstracts is available here.

When searching databases, you'll find results more efficiently by using Boolean search strategies.

• AND: Combine terms with AND to find only articles with both of those terms.
  • Ex: health AND communication AND cancer - will only find articles with all of these search terms
• OR: Combine terms with OR to look for articles with either term. This is useful when you have to terms to describe the same or similar topics.
  • Ex: education OR instruction - will find articles with either of these terms
• AND/OR: Build a complex strategy employing both AND and OR to find exactly what you need.
  • Ex: (media OR news) AND politics AND (gender or women) - articles found must have media or news, politics and gender or women.
• Truncation: Use the database's truncation symbol to look for words that end in different ways, especially verbs, or plural words.
  • Ex: media AND politic* - will find articles with media and politic, political, politics, politically etc.

If you find an article that is not available in full text (PDF or HTML) in the database you are searching look for the button or the link. These will search all of the OU Libraries holdings to see if there is an electronic copy of the article in another database.