Management Program: Using References

As you find books, articles, eBooks, websites, etc. to support your research, take advantage of the research that was used to write those sources. Looking for a Bibliography, Works Cited, or References list is an efficient way to research. In books, you may find the resources listed at the end of the book, at the end of a chapter, or at the end of sections within a chapter.

If you are looking for a book:

Take the citation information provided for books, and look in the online catalog, MnPALS, to see if SMSU owns the book. If SMSU doesn't own it, can you find it in other MnPALS Libraries by using the "All Libraries" search?  You may want to do a title search when you look for the book, or often a combination of major words in the title and the author's name in the All Fields search is effective.  For example, if this is the citation I found:

Fullan, M. (2008). The six secrets of change: What the best leaders do to help their organizations survive and thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

I would either change the search to Title and type six secrets change into the search box, or I could use the All Field search and type Fullan Six Secrets.

If you want to find a full-text article:

There are many options to search for full-text articles. For example, you could choose to search in a specific database, search multiple databases at once, or search in OneSearch by article title or journal title. Let's break down those options.

1. Searching in a specific database. This option works great if you are lucky enough to choose the correct database that the journal is indexed in. As you've seen by using the databases, not all publications are indexed in all databases. If you choose to do this option, you could either type in the article title into the search box or look for a Publications tab or search option where you can determine if the journal you need is in that database. While you may have luck with this route, it might not be the most efficient.
2. Searching multiple databases at once. If you look at the A to Z Database List, you'll see entries for Gale Database Selection Menu and EBSCO Database Selection Menu. From those lists, you can select to search in all of the databases at once. Once you get to the search screen, you could either search by the article title and/or part of the title and the author's name, or you could browse a Publications list (in most databases) to see if the publication is available in the databases.
3. You could also try using the OneSearch option on the library homepage. If you search for the article title and multiple results are returned (especially if your title isn't unique), you may want to use the filters on the left to narrow your options.  This route is most useful if you have a unique article title or if you have no idea which database(s) to search in.
4. Using the Journals search in OneSearch.  When you are in OneSearch, you'll see a Journals option across the top of the page. Using the Journal Search allows you to look by Journal Title or ISSN. After typing in the journal title, you'll get a list of results indicating if SMSU holds the title in print or electronic format. If the journal you are interested in is full-text in a database, it will tell you which database(s) have it. If it is a print title we have at SMSU, it will show you the holdings so you can see the publication date you are interested in. If we don't have it available full-text, it will let you know that as well. (Note that doesn't mean you can't get a copy of the article, but you'd need to request it via Interlibrary Loan.).  Choosing this option is the most efficient way to find if SMSU has a journal article available in full-text.

For example, this is the journal article I'm trying to find:

Cramton, C. D. (2001). The Mutual Knowledge Problem and Its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration. Organization Science, 12(3), 346-371.

If I wanted to see if I have access to this article via SMSU and since I do have a unique article title, so I could have success using the OneSearch box on the library homepage. In that case, I'd type in The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration and be able to find the title relatively quickly. However, if the title I'd been looking for was something more generic like Mutual Knowledge I may have to sift through more articles to find my specific citation in OneSearch.

An alternative would be to go to the Library homepage and do a search in OneSearch for Organization Science (the title of the journal).   This is what my results would look like:

From there, I would choose the Available Online link to see that Business Source Premier (as well as several other databases) has full-text available beginning in 1990. Since my article was written in 2001, it should be available in full-text in that database.