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Doing Research in Library
and Information Science: A Guide

The University of Washington Libraries contains a wealth of information to support research in the field of library and information science. This brief guide introduces you to major access tools to assist you in locating materials relevant to your research, as well as to some services that you might find useful during the course of your studies.

Getting Started

Begin your search for information by familiarizing yourself with the available resources. The best place to begin is the UW Libraries website, which provides access to the Libraries Catalog, article databases and full-text resources, electronic journals, and web resources. The website is designed to be the entrée to information held by the UW Libraries and beyond.

Although it is increasingly possible to obtain a great deal of information through online systems, some scholarly research is still available only in printed format. And while you can identify articles important to your research through online databases, you may still need to trek to the Libraries to find the actual item.

Background sources such as the Bowker Annual (Suzzallo Ready Reference Collection Z731 .B67 - near the Reference Desk) and the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (online and in Suzzallo Reference Z1006 .E57) can often help you to put a topic in context.

Finding Books

The UW Libraries Catalog, the Libraries WorldCat Local beta catalog, and the UW Law Library Catalog (MARIAN) list the books, periodicals, and many government publications owned by the UW Libraries and in the case of WorldCat Local, from around the world. Books can be searched in the catalogs by subject, keyword, author, and title.

Finding Journal Articles

The journal literature is a major form of scholarly communication in the field of library and information science. The databases and print resources below can be used to identify articles on your topic. There are links to these these and other databases on the Information Science subject page.

• Library Literature - UW Restricted Covers more than 200 library and information-science periodicals published internationally, and more than 600 books per year. Online version covers December 1984 to the present and includes full-text for selected periodicals. Published in the U.S. and focuses on indexing U.S. library-related publications.
• Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) - UW Restricted Covers journals in library and information science. Online access covers 1969 to the present. Also available in print at Suzzallo Reference Stacks at Z671 L58. Coverage began in 1950 (title was called Library Science Abstracts, located in the Suzzallo/Allen Stacks at Z671 L6155). Published in the U.K. and focuses on indexing U.K. library-related publications.
• ABI/INFORM Global - UW Restricted Indexes articles in the fields of management, marketing, economics, human resources, finance, taxation, and computers.
• ERIC - UW Restricted ERIC is a database indexing articles and documents in education and related fields. Many library science journals are indexed in ERIC.

• Education Fulltext - UW Restricted An index to journal articles in the field of education.

• ERIC Information Technology Full Text. Searches over 1,000 of the latest research reports, conference papers, opinion papers, selected articles and other ERIC documents in the fields of Library Science and Educational Technology and provides the documents in full text immediately.
• IEEE Xplore - UW Restricted Provides full-text access to IEEE transactions, IEEE and IEE journals, magazines, and conference proceedings published since 1988, and all current IEEE standards; brings additional search and access features to IEEE/IEE electronic library users.
• ACM digital library - Citations and full-text of Association for Computing Machinery articles from journals, magazines, and conference proceedings.
• INSPEC - UW Restricted Indexes and abstracts serials, conference proceedings, standards and reports in the physical sciences, electrical engineering & computer science.
• Web of Science Citation Indexes - UW restricted Provides general and cited reference searching of the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities Citation Indexes from 1980 to the present. Cited reference searching enables you to find articles from journals that have cited a book, patent, or another article. Through a cited reference search, you can discover how a known idea or innovation has been confirmed, applied, improved, extended or corrected.
• MEDLINE (PubMed) - Covers more than 3,900 journals in biomedicine, including citations published in Index medicus, International nursing index, and Index to dental literature, from 1966 to the present.

Finding Magazine and Newspaper Articles

You may want to search for articles in more general or popular sources that discuss trends having to do with the field of information studies or current issues not yet fully addressed in the research literature. Databases, many of which contain full-text, include: Expanded Academic Index, Research Library Complete, Lexis-Nexis (also known as Academic Universe), and Washington State Newsstand.

Other Research Resources

• Dissertation Abstracts - UW Restricted An index to dissertations completed primarily at U.S. universities.
• Congressional Universe - UW Restricted Coverage of U.S. legislative publications - hearings, bills, regulations, etc.
• Statistical Universe - UW Restricted Indexes statistics from governmental and private sources.

Connecting to UW Libraries Databases from home

All of the databases can be accessed from campus computers, and from your home, either through the UW Interconnectivity Kit (UWICK) or through your Internet Service Provider (ISP) using the Libraries proxy server. A list of frequently asked questions about connecting from off-campus is available through the Libraries Information Gateway in the Help category under Connecting. For information on the UWICK, check http://www.washington.edu/computing/software/uwick. For information on using the proxy server, see http://www.lib.washington.edu/asp/browser/proxy.asp. Be sure to read the Known Issues and Bugs page to see if your Internet Service Provider or browser will be able to use the proxy server.

Selected Services

Consultation services are available from your subject librarian. Contact Nancy Huling at hulingn@u.washington.edu or (206) 685-2211. Holds and recalls may be placed through the UW Libraries Catalog. Books owned by the 25 Oregon and Washington academic libraries belonging to the Orbis Cascade Alliance can be requested through the Catalog’s link to Summit, the shared catalog of these libraries. UWorld Express obtains books and articles the UW Libraries doesn’t own. Grants and Funding Information Service (GFIS) assists UW graduate student in identifying sources of funding to support research, and offers workshops and consultations. A general overview of services available to graduate students is available from the Libraries Information Gateway in the Services category under For Graduate Students.