Law Enforcement Academy Fall 2006

New September 7, 2006: You may now access RefWorks directly from the FLITE library homepage. See RefWorks is now available at Ferris in the left column under the picture of the library building. Accessing RefWorks via the home page link will eliminate the need to use a Group Code when you are off-campus.

Finding Books

To find books in FLITE, try either Subject or Keyword searches in the online catalog.

Book Locations:

Main Stacks, Call Numbers A-H - Lower Level

Main Stacks, Call Number J-Z - Third Floor

Reference - First Floor

Government Documents - Second Floor

Research Guide: Criminal Justice

To find print reference sources available in FLITE that are useful for Criminal Justice, use this Research Guide If you are in FLITE and need assistance, please contact the South Service Desk at 591-3602. A web-based Subject Reference Guide for Criminal Justice is also available to help you research.

Finding Journal Articles

To find journal articles on a particular topic, it's necessary to use one or more of the databases available on the FLITE Web site. These databases cumulatively provide indexing to thousands of journal titles. A few of the databases provide full-text (content of the articles is found directly within the database), but most only provide citations (description of where the article originally appeared in print).

General Databases

General OneFile
A very large full-text database with over 50 million articles covering a myriad of subjects, General OneFile indexes both newspapers and journals. Coverage is from 1980 to present. A few journals, especially older dates, give only selective full-text.

Wilson Select Plus
This completely full-text database includes articles from a wide range of subject fields including science, humanities, education and business. Coverage is from 1994 to the present.

Guide to Searching Wilson Select Plus
Use this guide to help you search the Wilson Select Plus database.

Lexis Nexis Academic Universe
Lexis Nexis Academic Universe provides access to full-text legal, business, newspaper, and medical articles. The Legal section of Academic Universe contains Federal and State Case Law, the Federal Code, Federal Regulations, and full-text articles from major law review journals. The Business section contains such materials as SEC Filings and Reports, Company information, and full-text business articles from newspapers and journals.

Guide to Searching Lexis Nexis Academic Universe - Legal Research
Use this guide to help your search for legal materials in Lexis Nexis.

General Social Science Information Database

PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES
PsycINFO is the most comprehensive indexing source for psychology and associated fields, containing "citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations . . . Journal coverage, spanning 1872-present, includes international material selected from more than 1,300 periodicals written in over 25 languages." PsycARTICLES is a full-text add-on to PsycINFO. Over 41,000 articles are available from about 50 core journals, with full-text coverage, in many cases, extending back to 1985.

Guide to Searching PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES
Use this guide to help you these two psychology databases.

Criminal Justice Databases

Criminal Justice Abstracts
With citations dating back to 1968, Criminal Justice Abstracts is prepared in cooperation with the Criminal Justice Collection of Rutgers University Library. Indexing journal articles, books, and government reports, Criminal Justice Abstracts covers such topics as crime trends, crime prevention and deterrence, juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, police courts, and sentencing.

Criminal Justice Periodicals Index
This database provides selective full-text coverage to journals in the fields of law enforcement, corrections administration, social work, drug rehabilitation, criminal and family law, industrial security, and other criminal justice fields. Citations extend back to 1981.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) contains more than 7,000 full-text reports, most authored by the U.S. Department of Justice, on a myriad of criminal justice-related topics. Also available from NCJRS are abstracts for more than 180,000 Federal, state, and local government reports; books; journal articles; and unpublished research. See the links labeled "Library Abstracts" and "Publications/Products" to search the two components of NCJRS.

Off Campus Access

FLITE's subscription databases are available to all current Ferris students, faculty, and staff. When you access a database from off campus you will need to login using your Library barcode number (located on the back of your Ferris ID) and a PIN (last four digits of your social security number or your birthdate in mmddyy format). If you experience problems logging on, please call (231) 591-2669 or (800) 4-FERRIS (ext. 2669), or stop by the Check Out Desk at the Library.

Requests can be made electronically through the InterLibrary Loan (ILL) Request form.

Additional information can be found at Off Campus Database Access.

Getting the Article

Once you've found citations relevant to the topic you're working with and you need to get a copy of the articles, you'll need to verify whether FLITE owns the particular journal in which each article was published. Many databases now have a link called "Find It", which, by clicking on it, will give you the range of options available for document retrieval (print, microform, online). If the full text of the article is available, you will be able to find the article by clicking on the link.

If the only message you see is "Request document via Interlibrary Loan", you will need to order the article. By clicking on the link in the window provided, you will be directed to a blank Interlibrary Loan form to be filled out. Sometimes the Find It button will provide a link to the Online Catalog. This indicates that the journal is found in FLITE's print collection. If you are off-campus and can't come to FLITE, simply order the article through Interlibrary Loan.

To look up whether FLITE owns a particular journal, use the Find a Periodical database to search for the journal title. Remember to use the journal title not the article title for your search.

RefWorks

RefWorks is a new web-based bibliographic tool provided by FLITE to help you manage citations by allowing you to enter, import, store, retrieve and print them for bibliographies in a variey of formats. For our new FLITE RefWorks Tutorial, click here. A more complete introductory guide to using RefWorks will be available on the FLITE website shortly. In the meantime if you have problems, please contact us at the South Service desk, by phone (231-591-3602), by email or by chat.

Web Resource

Google U.S. Government Search (Google Uncle Sam)

Google U.S. Government Search replaced Google Uncle Sam on June 15, 2006 and includes federal, state and local sites with domains such as .gov, .mil as well as government sites with .com, .us, and .edu domains (for example, the U.S. Postal Service: www.usps.com). While this may help target your search to reputable sites, you may also receive many more hits than using just the .gov domain. Try using the Advanced Search option and use the drop-down menus to limit your results by Date (within last 3 months, 6 months, etc.) or by Occurrences (limit to "in the title of the page") to retrieve more relevant results.

Advanced Web Searches

Remember to use the Advanced Search screen available through the Google or Alta Vista search engines. For Yahoo or Ask.com, you must run a basic search first to find the Advanced Screen. You may limit by a number of ways such as domain, date and occurrence to get more reliable and relevant results.

Click here to get the Web Evaluation handout from class:

Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites

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If you have any questions regarding using the library for research, Email Kristy Motz.

Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the South Service Desk and ask for help at any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.

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Last Update: September 7, 2006