Academic Resources Available During COVID-19

Intended to provide an introduction to library research, this guide also provides links to online resources (articles, eBooks, audiovisual, etc.), as well as extended access to resources made available by publishers due to COVID-19. Additionally, it links to other guides on OERs (Open Educational Resources), and COVID-19 CDC (Centers of Disease Control) resources.

Below is a short video introducing you to our library website and all that it has to offer.  

A-Z Databases

Search our introductory, general, and specialized databases for your research by subject, type of database, vendor, or title by clicking the link above.

Library Linking to Google Scholar

Navigate to Google Scholar

From menu, select Settings

Next, select “Library Links”

Open WorldCat includes everything that is freely available

Type in Eastern Washington University, select this option and save it

Now when you are searching you can link to our library’s holdings from GS.

Controlled Vocabulary (or Library of Congress Subject Headings) are terms you can use when searching the library catalog or databases, as this is how resources related to these topics will be indexed usually.  There are broader, narrower, and related terms associated with each of these.  Visit here or here to search for your own, and here to browse through an alphabetical list. 

Here are some Controlled Vocabulary terms:

• CORONAVIRUSES
• COVID-19
• CORONAVIRUS disease
• PANDEMICS
• CENTERS for Disease Control & Prevention (U.S.)
• WORLD Health Organization
• VIRAL disease prevention

Choose Keywords:

• Your own words for your topic
• Think of synonyms for these words
• Think in broader and narrower terms

Choose Subject Headings

• From library catalog search, choose “Browse” in headings and then “Browse by subject” in drop-down menu
• Follow subject tracings in databases
• See suggestions here

Use Boolean Operators: Narrow, broaden, or exclude terms in your search

The AND operator retrieves only records that have all of the search terms included in the record.  You want to use this operator to narrow or limit a search. e.g. COVID-19 AND impact

The OR operator retrieves all records that contain one or both of the search terms. Use this operator to expand a search.  e.g. COVID-19 OR CORONAVIRUSES

The NOT operator eliminates records that contain specific search terms. Use this operator to limit a search, however be careful! You may unintentionally eliminate results from your search that may be useful. e.g. pandemic NOT epidemic

Use NEAR/n to find records in proximity (COVID-19 NEAR/3 contagious)

Use SAME to find terms in same line

Nesting Search Technique: Narrow or broaden your search

Search Query:

(COVID-19 OR CORONAVIRUSES) AND (world OR public)

Results:

COVID-19 AND world

COVID-19 AND public

CORONAVIRUSES AND world

CORONAVIRUSES AND public

Parentheses force order of processing

Phrase Searching: Narrow your search

Type a phrase with quotes so this exact phrase will be found in the results.

For example, “preventing COVID-19” will return results where ”preventing COVID-19” is written in the article or source.

Truncation Search Technique: Broaden your search

Truncation is also used when you are unsure of a spelling or want to retrieve plurals. The common truncation symbol across the databases is the "*". What the * does is it begins searching for any words that begin with the letters you've typed, but may end in many different ways. It looks something like this:

A search for medi* will return results for medicine, medical, medic, etc.

Wildcard Search Technique: Broaden your search

Wildcards are used when you are unsure of a particular spelling or if there are alternate spellings of your search term. The most common wildcard symbol across databases is the "?". The wildcards work a little different within each database, but the common function looks something like this:

A search for wom?n will return records containing women, woman, etc.

Facets or Limiters: Broaden your search

Narrow by publication year

Narrow by choosing FT

Narrow by selecting Scholarly/Peer-reviewed

Narrow by subjects

Narrow by language, region, etc.