Infotrac Journals and Newspaper Database

							   Infotrac Journals/Newspaper Database and Gale Virtual Reference Library
Infotrac is a „one stop‟ source for millions of newspaper and journal articles and the contents of 21
electronic books. Most of these are „full-text‟.
From the Welcome Page – College Website choose:




Library Services,                 Internet website www.wiltscoll.ac.uk/signpost.asp. You need a
To use Infotrac from home go via the CollegeResources,              News and Reference.
password - ask your campus Library and Learning Resources Centre for this.
Choose Infotrac from the Reference shelf.


Infotrac has four databases:
InfoTrac Full Text Newspaper Database - 50 newspapers including international and British national/
local titles. Updated daily. Many are available from 1980 onwards.
InfoTrac OneFile - over 6,000 British and international magazines. Most available from 1980 onwards.
Gale Virtual Reference Library – 21 books on a wide range of subjects.
19th Century British Library Newspapers - full runs of 48 influential
national and regional newspapers.

Searching
You can either:
 search just one database by clicking on it,
 search 2 databases together - tick the box to the left and click „Submit‟,
 search all databases by ticking „Select All‟ and „Submit‟.

BEFORE YOU SEARCH!
Think about your search terms carefully and choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:
 Try the obvious first. If you're looking for information on Picasso, type "Picasso" not "painters".
 Make keywords as specific as possible "antique lead soldiers" gets better hits than "old metal toys".
 Search for other words which mean the same e.g. “woman”, “female”, “women”, etc (use „?‟ or „!‟ below)
 Check your spellings! 25% of searches fail because search words are misspelled.


Keyword Search
Keyword Search is the default search (click on „Advanced Search‟ or „More Search Options‟ to use a more
complex search). Keyword Search lets you match words in the articles themselves, not just in the title.
Type one or more words into the box and click on search.

If you are unsure of a spelling or want to search for variations of a word you can use a wildcard:
   ? question mark replaces one letter. Useful if you are unsure of a spelling - relev?nce means you can
       find the word relevance even if you can‟t remember if it ends with ance or ence. Also useful for
       finding words with variant spellings - organi?ation will find organisation / organization
   ! exclamation mark replaces one or no characters. Useful for matching single or plural forms of a
       Word - product! matches products and product but not productivity or productive. Can also be
       used to match words with variant spellings, colo!r matches both colour and color
   * asterisk finds words that share the same root. E.g. child* matches child, children, childhood, etc

You can restrict your search by date, e.g. to search for articles published in the last 6 months, or an
article printed on a particular date.                         Search screen for Gale Virtual Reference
                                                              Library and „Select All‟ – click „More Search
                                                              Options‟ to see the full search screen.




 Search screen for Infotrac OneFile and
 Newspaper Database



Useful Hints
The default setting will find only full-text articles, but if you get very few
„hits‟, or you don‟t find any articles at all, simply click in the box to remove the
tick and click on the search button again.

What is on Infotrac? Click Browse to see a list of the newspapers and
magazines. You can search for articles in a specific magazine or newspaper by
clicking on Browse, ticking the magazine(s) you want to search in, then clicking Submit. To see a list of the
books on Gale Virtual Reference Library click „Advanced Search‟ then Browse.

How far back do the magazines go? Some have been on Infotrac since
1980, but not all go back that far. To see how far back magazines go
click InfoTrac OneFile journals database then click on Title List. Scroll
down to Infotrac OneFile and click on Journals. The list tells you the
date Infotrac started indexing it and whether it is full-text.




Search Results
Your results will be shown as a list, just click on the title to see the article.

You can print, email or save articles by clicking the options on the top toolbar.

Articles which aren’t full text on Infotrac – note down the details from
Infotrac (title, author, page numbers, volume & issue no., title of magazine /
newspaper). Then check our Library Magazine List http://www.wiltscoll.ac.uk/library/LLRC_docs/LLR18.xls
to see if we take that magazine/newspaper so you can read the article or photocopy it. You can also find
newspaper articles on the web: click on Internet Gateway and then Local News Reference. If you still
can‟t find the magazine or newspaper article please ask a member of staff.

Choose your keywords carefully. If you aren‟t getting many „hits‟ (and you have checked that the „articles
with full-text‟ limiting box isn‟t ticked) or you are getting too many hits, you may have to change the
words you are searching for. Instead of typing school and getting 87,000 hits, can you narrow the
search? Are you are really looking for national curriculum, or education of physically disabled children?
Perhaps you could use a wildcard: disab* would search for disabled, disability, disabilities (don‟t forget
that articles before 1990 may have used non-politically correct terms, like „handicap‟, „retarded‟, etc).

Think around your subject for other words or phrases you could use: teenage pregnancy, single mothers,
lone parents, contraception, parenting, young parents, abortion may all find different articles on the same
subject which would be of use to you.

Use Boolean Logic! This just means using AND, NOT and OR in your search to combine two keywords.
AND – will find articles on both the search terms you type in, so if you are looking for articles about
       alcohol and pregnancy or disab* and handicap* type all of those words and Infotrac will find
       records which match both the word alcohol and the word pregnancy, or all the words which have
       the root disab and handicap (disable, disabled, disability, disabilities, handicapped, handicap, etc).
NOT – this will find the word before NOT, but will exclude the word after NOT. So if you were looking
       for articles on crime but did not want articles on murder, you would type crime not murder.
OR – this will find one of your search terms, or both of them. Searching for dreams or daydreams will
       find articles on dreams, daydreams and both dreams and daydreams.

Pictures. There are few pictures in Infotrac, so if you want an
image connected to your subject, click the multimedia tab and click
Google icon and it will re-run your search in Google‟s picture database.

“ “ double quotes match search words exactly. Searching for “civil war” will match civil war or war civil
  exactly. Other examples Iraq “wmd” will find articles on Iraq which contain the phrase wmd.
+ theplus sign. Articles must contain a particular word. So +radio means that articles must contain the
  word radio. “+capital gains” finds articles which must contain capital gains or gains capital. Other
  examples: Share trading +london finds articles on share trading which mention London.
- the minus sign. Articles must not contain a particular word. –headache will find articles which don‟t
  contain the word headache. “-pesticide residue” means that articles must not contain pesticide residue
  or residue pesticide. So crops “-pesticide residue” will find articles on crops which do not contain the
  words pesticide residue.

Subject Search. This will search for articles by topic. Type one or more words into the box and click on
search. It‟s usually best to search for only one or two words. If you do type more than one word,
type the most important word first, even if that looks wrong. Again, as in the Keyword Search you can
use wildcards, restrict your search by date or limit it to specific journal or newspaper titles.

                          KEYWORD SEARCHING - WORKED EXAMPLES
Try some of these examples and see how many „hits‟ Infotrac returns that match your search terms

Keyword                      Number of Hits                     Keyword                    Number of Hits
british butterflies                                             tropical plants
british +butterflies                                            tropical +plants
butterflies -british                                            tropical -plants
british or butterflies                                          tropical or plants
“british butterflies”                                           “tropical plants”

Keyword                      Number of Hits                     Keyword                    Number of Hits
beauty therapy                                                  social work policy
beauty +therapy                                                 social +work +policy
beauty -therapy                                                 social and policy -work
beauty or therapy                                               social or policy or work
“beauty therapy”                                                “social work policy”
                                       Gale Virtual Reference Library

WHAT IS AN eBOOK?
It‟s a book that you can use through a computer. You can search for information in it by typing in search
words, or you can read pages from it.

Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of 21 eBooks. It has textbooks, encyclopaedias and
directories covering the arts, business, countries, statistics, education, environment, history, law,
literature, medicine, multicultural studies, religion, science and social science. It‟s easy to use and offers
24/7 remote access. It also offers cross searching so that you can search through all books in the
collection, or limit your search to a specific book (e.g. Pollution A-Z). Besides the complete content of a
book, you can view illustrations and the book‟s front and back pages including the table of contents,
indexes and appendices. A link to “About this eBook” gives you information about the book, including its
ISBN, subject areas and a brief description.

The eBooks in Gale Virtual Reference Library are:

 Arts and Humanities through       Child Development                      Contemporary Fashion – over 450
 the Eras – guide to history,      - human development from birth         designers from the 1940s to
 art, music and culture            to adolescence                         today, like Stella McCartney, etc
 Countries and Their Cultures      Encyclopedia of Business and           Encyclopedia of Clothing and
 - compares the cultures of        Finance – covers accounting,           Fashion – tattoos, development of
 over 200 countries, from food     banking, marketing, management         fabrics and clothes, film costume,
 and rituals to pastimes and       and information systems                piercing, designers. Also shows
 arts                                                                     how clothes echo culture/society.
 Encyclopedia of Food and          Encyclopedia of e-Commerce -           Encyclopedia of Psychology –
 Culture – all aspects of food:    covers advertising, auction sites,     Includes theorists like Freud;
 preparation; storage; health;     online banking, business-to-           case studies; experiments;
 festivals; nutrition. Includes    business (B2B) and business-to-        applications of psychology in
 menus, recipes, timelines         consumer (B2C).                        advertising, medicine and sports.
 Encyclopedia of Science –         Encyclopedia of Science,               History Behind the Headlines –
 Explores science, maths,          Technology and Ethics -ethics of       Explains the ethnic, religious,
 technology, engineering, plus     using science/technology. Covers       political and economic causes of
 medical and health sciences.      environmental issues, genetic          war. Terrorism also well covered.
                                   research, computer ethics, etc
 Learning and Memory –             New Dictionary of the History          Nonfiction Classics for Students
 includes conditioning,            of Ideas - explores traditional        – explores books like „Angela‟s
 dementia, hypnosis, brain-        ideas such as physics, linguistics     Ashes‟ and „Silent Spring‟. Has
 anatomy, collective memory,       and communism, plus modern ones        critical essays, author
 déjà vu, schizophrenia, etc.      like post-colonialism                  biographies, cultural context, etc.
 Nutrition and Well-Being A        Pollution A – Z - Covers issues        Science of Everyday Things –how
 to Z – Looks at how nutrition     like acid rain, noise pollution,       maths and science are applied in
 affects quality of life, health   global warning and nuclear energy.     everyday things. Focuses on
 and fitness in various            Discusses the ethical and social       Biology, Chemistry, Earth
 countries.                        issues.                                Sciences and Physics.
 World Press Encyclopedia –        Worldmark Encyclopedia of              Worldmark Encyclopedia of the
 the press and electronic          Religious Practices – Examines 13      Nations –Information on 200
 media in 200 countries,           religions and 24 sects. Includes       countries, including history,
 including: media law, news        doctrines, customs, sacred texts       government data, geography,
 agencies, censorship,             and religious holidays. Shows how      climate, population, national
 journalism training, Internet     different, or similar, religions are   leaders. Contains maps, flags and
 and new media.                    from another.                          numerous pictures.