From CUNY Academic Commons
With 20 libraries throughout the university, it’s not surprising that CUNY library faculty have created a wide variety of tutorials and guides for research, library materials, and information literacy. Here’s a sampling of the wonderful tools and resources available for faculty and student use in all disciplines, compiled by LILAC, the Library Information Literacy Advisory Committee. Please feel free to add to this list!
STARTING YOUR RESEARCH:
Getting Started with College Research This City Tech tutorial is a textual, click through introduction to starting the research process: reading about a subject, choosing a topic, identifying keywords, constructing a concept map, getting help from a librarian. As its name indicates, it’s strictly about “getting started,” and does not address how to take what you’ve learned and apply it to searching library resources.
Formulating a Search Strategy This is an excellent 5 + minute tutorial, (slides w/audio presentation) about how to create a search strategy using keyword concepts and Boolean connectors. It is clear and includes an 8-question quiz and a printable summary of the lesson.
FINDING LIBRARY RESOURCES:
Find a Book by Author in the Library Catalog A short (two minutes, no audio) Hunter College video tutorial about how to start at the library’s homepage and look up a book in the catalog by author. The tutorial is Hunter-specific, but could be used by any CUNY school, once inside the CUNY Library Catalog the directions are useful no matter which CUNY school you attend.
The LOOP The LOOP (Library Online Orientation Program) website provides a comprehensive introduction to the Brooklyn College Library. While much content is BC-specific, the Books and Articles pages in the Doing Research section contains tutorials relevant to all researchers. (A quiz is included, though it is only available to Brooklyn College students.)
Finding a Book on the Shelf Using the Call Number This clear and straightforward one-page guide from LaGuardia Community College uses images and text to explain how to use Library of Congress call numbers to find books in the CUNY libraries.
TOPIC-SPECIFIC RESEARCH:
Guide to Research for Oral Presentations This Baruch College tutorial is a text-based introduction on how to use databases to find articles, how to evaluate sources, and how to cite them in oral presentations. With additional links to other resources, such as how to create oral presentations, steps of the research process, Boolean searching, etc.
Beginner’s Guide to Business Research This Baruch College video tutorial is an introduction to doing business research. It covers how to find information from two major sources: company websites and business databases. It also addresses the disadvantages of relying on the free web for company information. Includes a short quiz to test your business research skills.
Introduction to Mutual Funds This 30 minute video tutorial from Baruch College provides an introduction to mutual funds, including definitions, how and why to buy, and how to track mutual fund performance.
CITING SOURCES:
MLA Citation Guide This online guide to MLA Style for Students (7th edition) from LaGuardia Community College offers explanation of the elements of each citation type as well as detailed common abbreviations and in-text citation guides. What will prove helpful for users is the notation of the rule upon which each example is based from the MLA handbook should users require additional reference.
APA Citation Guide This online guide to the revised APA style manual from LaGuardia Community College offers a list with examples of all media, electronic, and print citation formats. It also includes a detailed guide to in-text citations and abbreviations. Each example is accompanied by reference and page to the source from the APA manual.
