During Reading Week (From Tuesday the 26 to Friday the 29th of May) the Library will be launching a new initiative for PCA Students, which is aimed to be a fun way of learning, informative and will provide an increased knowledge and know how in using information.
The sessions will be tailored to develop research skills in a number of ways, so that the individual will learn how to drill straight through to the information required through a variety of direct methods and also to save time from having to wade through a mass of irrelevant information.
Although the intention of the sessions is to help anyone who has trouble knowing where to begin when set a research project, those preparing to start their dissertations may find these ways into productive research gathering, and the variety of research tools available, particularly useful.
Each session will last about an hour.
Tuesday: Secrets of Successful Searching
Tuesday’s session will get you searching like an Info Pro. The main aim of Secrets of Successful Searching is to look at your initial project idea and from there how to build a meaningful and relevant search. The aim of this session is to present you with useful search tips and to improve your search strategy; learning how to get accurate and useful information, thereby saving you time from having to sort through pages of irrelevant results. You will learn how to conduct a successful search, using a wide variety of techniques including the ways of the Wildcard Search and other little tricks of the Info Pro’s trade.
Wednesday: Revealing the mysteries of the Library’s Online Database Collection
Wednesday’s session will look in-depth at the various databases the Library subscribes to and how to manipulate your searches to get the most accurate and relevant results. The session will start with how to access the databases from within the College Network, as well as from home, through to building a search and then manipulating the results to find the most relevant information for your project. The session will look in particular at Jstor and ArtSource, with the opportunity to explore the other databases available from the library.
eBooks & eJournals
Did you know that the through the Library you have access to a variety of eBooks and eJournals? If not, then maybe Thursday’s session is just the thing for you! You will be shown how to access both eBooks and eJournals, and in the case of eJournals how to drill your search down to the most relevant articles or alternatively how to just browse the issues.
Harvard Referencing
With your search strategies firmly in place, finish off your week with an in-depth look at Harvard Referencing. Go over the basic rules and how to avoid the pitfalls, when referencing the wide and wonderful results you now have at your fingertips from gaining the Secrets of Successful Searching!
Each session will run for an hour at 10am, 1pm and 3pm.
Spaces will be limited to 20
Hope to see you in the Library in Reading Week!
