Archive | How To

If you have a mac laptop setting it up to print on one of the library lab printers requires a few more steps than it does for a PC laptop, but the added benefit of printing truly wirelessly.  There is no dealing with ethernet cables at all.  If you have a PC laptop see the post from a week or so ago, “Printing from your laptop (part 1)”

Watch the slides below to see how!

Have you ever been frustrated when you have written a paper on your laptop in the library and need to print it, but can’t print from your laptop? You have to save your file to a drive or email it to yourself and then login to a library lab computer to print it out.  Now you can print from your laptop to the library main lab printers.  Watch the slides below to see how!

Two items to note:  One, you will need to plug in your machine to an ethernet cable somewhere in the library.  Two, these instructions are for PC’s only.  To print from your mac is a more complicated set-up, but on the plus side you don’t have to plug in with an ethernet cable and can truly print wireless-ly from your laptop.  Click here for Part 2 — Instructions for macs.

You can view the slides in full-screen if you cannot clearly see the screen-shots.

I thought about trying to write this post using only acronyms, but thought better of it.  For those of you who use the APA citation style, adjusting to the new DOI (Digital Object Identifier) system can be a challenge.  Often students will come to the reference desk asking for help with a reference page because they didn’t include DOI numbers and the professor marked up their reference page with red ink.  APA style requires the use of DOI numbers.  However, occasionally one will run into a reference that does not have a DOI no.  This leaves you with the problem of  trying to determine if the article you are citing has a DOI number or not.  While you can look up references using a DOI number, usually you will already have the citation information for the reference.  More likely, you are to have a citation and wonder if it has a DOI number or not.  If this is the case, Cross Ref has a free tool that allows you to enter your full citation or what information you have, and will give you the DOI number for the article if it has one.

Here is an example for how to cite articles with and without DOI numbers.

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a group effort of several databases to make dissertation and thesis work available for research. On their website (link above) there are two main search engines for exploring their databases.

Of the two engines, we would recommend SCIRUS ETD because it has more specific search possibilities and a list of 17 subject categories. Clicking on an article will take you to the database or university web page where you should find a link saying “full-text” or “download.”

OCLC has a similar system called OAISTER that SAU has access to. To view the items, click on the title and find the “Details” section. In that section, by “Access,” there will be a link to the site where the thesis or dissertation can be viewed. Look for links with “full-text” or “access” to find the link in the database’s page.

On the NDLTD site there are also links to some databases from foreign colleges. English articles can be found in ADT (Australiasian Digital Theses Program), DART-Europe E-theses Portal, DiVA (Scandanavia), EThOS (United Kingdom), NARCIS (Netherlands), National ETD Portal (South Africa), and Theses Canada. There is also a German database (Deusche National Bibliothek) which has English articles, but the web page is in German. To see a translated view click here.

Watch this short instructional video (3 mins 37 secs) on how to search Ebsco databases.  This video walks you thru a search with ATLA Religion, but this “how-to” applies to all of our Ebsco Databases.  Ebsco databases include: CINAHL, Communication and Mass Media Complete, Social Work Abstracts, Communication Abstracts, Teacher Reference Center.