Orientation Notes

Technology Center Orientation Notes

  1. Introduction
1. Library Policy
          • The library opens at 7:30 AM and closes one hour after school.
          • Reference Books circulate overnight. They must be returned before 1st period the next day. Books can be checked out for 3 weeks, magazines for 1 week.
          • Printing policy is 3 pages per session per student.
          • Use print preview to check the number of pages before printing.
2. Books You Should Know About.
          • The first volume of any reference set you consult is the Index.
          • Indexes give codes to help you locate your article.The first number gives the volume number to consult, then there is a mark of punctuation, usually a colon (:), the last number indicates the page numbers. Example:  Pacific Ocean 9:153. See volume 9 page 153.
          • Use New Catholic Encyclopedia to search for all things Catholic.
          • Use Current Biography for Names in the News.
          • Use Encyclopedia of World Biography for people important to history.
          • General encyclopedia’s cover all subjects like Americana and Britannica. Specialized encyclopedias cover only one subject in depth like New Catholic Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia of World Biography.
3. When you have a project that does not depend on current information (newspapers and magazines) please begin by getting a short picture of your topic. A general encyclopedia like Americana and Britannica is a good place to begin.
4. Call Numbers are locator codes.
          • They are made up of two parts. The top number is called the Dewey Decimal Number and represents the subject of the book. The bottom number is called the Cutter Number and, for the most part, stands for the first three letters of the author’s last name.
          • F on the Dewey line means fiction.
          • SS on the Dewey line means short story.
          • R before the Dewey number means it is a reference book.
          • Biographies are not marked with a B. They are assigned a Dewey number between 920 through 929. In biography, the Cutter numbers stand for the person the book is about. Example: a book about George Washington would be     923.1 WAS.
5. Card catalog is located on every computer that has internet access at school and from home. Keyword selects the most number of works on a topic. You may also search for author, title, subject, series, call number, and barcode. The title details give the format of the book, amount of pages in the book, size of the book, Por., Ports., Ill., il., facsim tell us that there are pictures in the book.  To get to the card catalog link, go to the Ryan homepage and mouse over Academics, click on Library Media Center then choose Card Catalog.
 
II. Electronic Databases
  1.  

1. Access the databases through the Archbishop Ryan website. Go to the library link then click on electronic databases. Username is ryanhs and password is raiders.

2. POWER Library are databases provided by the State of PA. They can be accessed in school with the POWER Library link and from home through a public library website with the barcode from your public library card.

3. Ryan's electronic databases are: Galenet, Proquest, Sirs, ABC-Clio, Grolier Passport, Oxford University, Wilson Web, and Facts on File. You must know where to find the database. For example: GVRL(Gale Virtual Reference Library) is part of Galenet along with Biography in Context and 8 other databases, and New Book of Popular Science and Americana are found in Grolier Online Passport. You must know that Proquest (Red Icon) is a magazine database with a special religious magazine section. When you have a project that depends on current information use  Proquest (red Icon) for 10,000 magazines and newspapers. All SIRS databases are now in the Proquest family of products.

4. Use Boolean operators for an advanced search. "And" narrows the search, "Or" expands the search, "Not" narrows the search.

III. NoodleTools helps you can create "works cited" or bibliographies, notecards, parenthetical references, and outlines. NoodleTools helps you to avoid plagiarism, and you can produce and share your document in Google Docs. Your Personal ID is your Ryan email address and your password is ar and your student ID. Your revalidation code is ragdoll. At Ryan, we use MLA 8th edition for formatting citations.

IV. Plagiarism is expressing words, images, and sounds of others as your own.

V. Photographs, artwork, and images must always be cited when used in a research paper.