SPA 307/8 Survey of Latin American Literature: Database Searching

Reference Desk 610.902.8537

• The more limiters you put on your search, the fewer results your search will return. If you're not finding enough, try broadening your search either in concept, date range, or availability (unclick that full text butten and request articles through interlibrary loan). Never unclick "exclude dissertations" though.
• Use your @cabrini.edu email address when emailing articles to yourself from the database to ensure that your research does not end up in your spam folder.
• Make use of the thesaurus and "Names as Subjects" directory if your searches seem to be correct in words but off in concept.
• You can limit your search to specific languages, ie. English and/or Spanish.
• Regardless of the language of the article, all of the subject headings are in English. Abstracts may be provided in both English and Spanish. Therefore, if you search in Spanish, you will be "free-searching" the text of the article and possibly the abstract. If you search in English, you will be searching the subject headings (or key words) and possibly the text of the abstract. The former will be a much more focused search.

• IMMEDIATELY switch to advanced search.
• ALWAYS "include only content I can access," unless you have time to wait for interlibrary loan.
• To request an item through interlibrary loan from JSTOR, email the citation, your name, your ID number, and the last date needed to ill@cabrini.edu from your @cabrini.edu email address.
• Be wary of links to external content. Evaluate these sources to verify their scholarly worth.
• Limit by item type, date, discipline, etc. Just remember that your searches will return fewer results the more limits you place on them.
• Alternatively, don't limit by item type, date, discipline, etc. Get a historical look at your topic from outside your field.
• And, as always, limit your search to languages in which you read fluently!

When JSTOR emails you a citation they send a permalink TO the article rather than an attachment OF the article. If you're on campus, that link will work perfectly. If you're off campus, you will need to attach the following URL prefix:

http://ezproxy.library.cabrini.edu/login?url=

For example, this is the information you get from JSTOR:

NUMBER OF CITATIONS : 1

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1.

Title: Public Occurrences

Source: The Belfast Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 7 (Feb. 28, 1809), pp. 149-154

Publisher(s): Belfast Monthly Magazine

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30072225

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In order to access the article, copy and paste first the URL prefix and then the stable URL into your browser. It should look like this:

http://ezproxy.library.cabrini.edu/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30072225

When you access the link with the prefix attached, you should get a login page. Once you've logged in (using the same username and password that you use to log on to the library computers), you should be able to access your article in full-text.

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