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Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows - Library Workshop

Summer 2022 workshop for rising juniors

Workshop materials

Meredith Wisner

Profile Photo
Meredith Wisner
She/Her
Contact:
Meredith Wisner
Research & Instruction Librarian for the Arts
Office: 306 Milstein

Mon & Tues: Zoom only
Wed - Fri: In-person/Zoom
212.854.7652
Website

Personal Librarians

Personal Librarians: By Department 

Erin Anthony Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Mathematics, Neuroscience and Behavior, Physical Education, Physics and Astronomy, and Psychology 
Jennie Correia Economics, Human Rights, Political Science, Sociology, and Urban Studies
Jenna Freedman Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies, Zines

Rachel 
Finn

Classics & Ancient Studies, Education, German, History, Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Philosophy, Religion, and Slavic Studies 
Vani Natarajan Africana Studies, American Studies (with Gina Levitan), Anthropology, Asian & Middle Eastern Cultures, Comparative Literature, English, French, Italian, Jewish Studies, and Spanish and Latin American Cultures 
Meredith Wisner Architecture, Art (studio), Art History, Dance, Film Studies, Music, and Theater

Personal Librarians for Incoming Students:

Incoming Students, last names A-C Jennie Correia
Incoming Students, last names D-I Rachel Finn
Incoming Students, last names J-N Erin Anthony
Incoming Students, last names O-S Meredith Wisner
Incoming Students, last names T-Z Vani Natarajan 

Sophomores/ Undeclared Returning Students

If you were assigned a PL last year, your personal librarian hasn’t changed! And all are welcome to continue reaching out to the librarian(s) they wish.  

About this Guide

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows
Research Guide



 

 

 

 

What's in this Guide

Here you will find resources to help you with your research. Use the side navigation to find:

  • Resources for background information on your topic
  • Places to find articles & books
  • Resources for citing sources
  • Remote library services 

Book an appointment

You can book an appointment with the next available librarian here:

Research guides

Research Guides at Barnard and Columbia

Keyword brainstorming

Developing Keywords

Why use keywords?

Keywords are terms that describe the topic you are researching. Keywords can be a people, places, things, ideas, or concepts. We need keywords to effectively search in library academic databases (like CLIO or Jstor). Unlike internet browsers, which have developed to understand full questions written in natural language, academic databases use keywords to locate resources. 

There are no perfect searches when using keywords, which is why it's useful to brainstorm lots of related terms and/or synonyms to locate what you are looking for. For example, we might use the word "teenager" to describe a particular population, but the term "youth" might be used in a database instead.  You can also find new keywords once you begin searching in the content section and subject sections of a catalog entry.

Screenshot of a catalog record showing subject and content sections

Using boolean operators and boolean modifiers

Annotated Bibliographies & Literature Reviews

Annotated Bibliographies

Literature Reviews

Note: To search for articles that happen to be literature reviews, you can insert the phrase "literature review" (keep the quotes in for syntactical precision) in your article search, along with other terms that cover the topic/theme you are looking for. Many articles that are structured as literature reviews will mention this aspect in the title.