Stick to Databases
By searching through the library’s subscription databases and limiting your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, you can be confident that all the materials retrieved will be legitimate sources for your research paper.
Choosing a Database
The Benedictine Library groups databases by broad subject heading. In addition, each database has a description of the subjects covered. Every database has HELP pages if you need them.
Database Coverage and Interlibrary Loan
Use the Advanced Search
By using the Advanced Search feature you can combine concepts to produce a more in-depth search. Advanced search also lets you choose to search a field: Author, Title, Publication Title or Subject.
Search by Phrase
Use quotation marks “ “ to enclose a commonly used phrase. This will force the database to search those terms as one phrase. For example: “Fran Lloyd Wright” will look for the architect. Frank Lloyd Wright will bring up articles that have any of those words in them.
Boolean Operators
Used to connect and define the relationship between your search terms. When searching electronic databases, you can use Boolean operators to either narrow or broaden your record sets. The three Boolean operators are AND, OR and NOT.
Controlled Vocabulary
Many databases use vocabulary that is specific to the subject being covered. This vocabulary is often listed under Subject or Thesaurus. The purpose of controlled vocabulary is to give precise terminology to make database searching more effective and efficient. By entering search terms from the Subject or Thesaurus gives the user precise results. This is often more effective than searching by keyword.
Can't find the book you need in the BenU Library's collection? No problem! Request it through I-Share at no cost to you. If I-Share doesn't have it, contact us. We can almost always get you what you need. Learn more on our Interlibrary Loan page.
To borrow items from I-Share, follow the steps below:
Lisle
Kindlon Hall
5700 College Rd.
Lisle, IL 60532
(630) 829-6050
Mesa
Gillett Hall
225 E. Main St.
Mesa, AZ 85201
(480) 878-7514