In case you missed the workshop yesterday....

In case you missed the workshop Using RSS and Blogs for Research, here is a link to the library's wiki page: http://www.library.txstate.edu/wiki/index.php?title=Using_RSS_and_Blogs_for_Research Using RSS is a great way to keep up with your favorite Website or Blog without going to each Website individually. Each time there is an update to the Website or Blog, you will receive a feed. Read more about RSS and Research by following the link.

You can also find information about setting up RSS/alerts in many of the research databases Alkek subscribes to. Usually you will need to create an account in the database.

Google Scholar & Refworks

Google Scholar is Google's way of searching scholarly literature in one place. It searches accross different subject areas and if searched through the Alkek Library's database page, will link to our electronic resources. Find out more about Google Scholar from the library's Google Scholar information page:

Refworks is a bibliographic management tool that you can use when conducting research using the library's databases and catalog. If you are not familiar with Refwoks, the library offers workshops throughout the semester. You can also take their tutorial and quickly learn how valuable the resource is. As a member of the Texas State Community, you can use this management tool.

However, if you are familiar with both of these research tools, you will be interested to know that you can use Google Scholar and Refworks together. Simply go the "Google Scholar Preferences Section" and down at the bottom of the page see "Bibliographic Manager" and there you can choose Refworks from the pull down list.

Then all you have to do is use Google Scholar through the Library Databases page to do your research. (find it under "G" or "General." Just keep in mind that not ALL of the library's resources are searchable through Google Scholar, only the resources made available by publishers working with Google, and the library catalog WorldCat, to make their content searchable via the Internet. There are still a lot of journals that are indexed in proprietary databases which can only be searched individually.

Happy searching.....