Library Resources for Criminology

I. The Approach
Brainstorm keywords and conduct pre-research on your research topic:
Based on your research question, brainstorm keywords related to your research
topic. Learn about your topic and find other keywords by doing some pre-research.
Once you identify keywords to start off your search, your goal should be to find an
article that will lead you to other keywords, subject headings and references. If you
find a term and do not know what it means, look it up before you use it in another
search.

Research topic: What are the principal challenges in administering women’s

prisons?

Keywords: women, prison, administration, incarceration…

Resources:

• Go to the A to Z List of Databases on the library homepage, select Credo

Reference. Conduct a keyword search or look in these e-reference books:
Dictionary of Policing, Dictionary of Prisons and Punishment, Dictionary of
Probation and Offender Management, Dictionary of Youth Justice
• Go to the A to Z List of Databases on the library homepage, select CQ
Researcher to find out if there are any reports on your topic.
• Google Books: http://books.google.com/. Scan the online books and look
through the snippets of information (if book is not available full-text). If you
find a good resource, request book through library catalog or interlibrary
loan.
• Search for books through our library catalog. Extend your search to “all
locations”.
• Use the National Criminal Justice Reference Service to find credible websites
that cover your topic. Use the National Criminal Justice Thesaurus to find
more keywords and subject terms:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Search/ThesaurusSearch.aspx
• Statistics: The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, provides criminal justice
statistics, http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/aboutbjs.htm#publications. The FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reports, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm#cius, provides
statistics on crimes reported to the police.

I. Mini-Tour of Library
First floor:
• Circulation desk and reserves (near the entrance): get your library card,
check out books and check out articles/books your professor places on
reserve.
• Reference room and Reference Foyer (side of building): contains
encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries that provide context to your research
topic. Always staffed by a reference librarian.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 1
 Library Resources for Criminology
• Computers: 14 PCs throughout the library. The two PCs in front of the
reference desk have Microsoft Office installed. Print to Pharos stations
located in the lower level, the first and second floors.
• Index Area (back of the building): Find book reviews and indexes of articles
published. Four PC’s have Microsoft Office installed.
• Study Carrels: Towards the back of the first floor; quiet study areas located
throughout library.
• Archives and Special Collections (near the Mars Rover): Houses historical
documents and artifacts of the college.
• Photocopier: 2 copiers located on each side of the library; one copier in
Periodicals area.
• Bathrooms: women’s room 1st floor, men’s room lower mezzanine.

Lower Mezzanine Levels:

• Book stacks level 1 (floor underneath the “Pit”); bound journal articles;
Archives Room; vending machine
• Book stack level 2
• Book stack level 3

Upper Mezzanine:
• Periodicals Area: magazines, newspapers, microfilm, microfiche
• Curriculum Library: library materials for education students
• Smart market: coffee, tea and snacks

I. Search for encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries in the Reference

Room at the library
The Reference Room’s books are organized by subject categories. To determine the
category where a reference book would be classified under, look at the list posted
on the door of room 118 labeled “Library of Congress Classification Schedules.”
Books relating to Sociology would be classified under HM through HX.

The library also provides encyclopedias, handbooks and dictionaries online through
the database called Credo Reference. You can access Credo Reference under A to
Z List of Databases on the library homepage.

II. Access the library’s resources if you are off campus:

Go to the library home page http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary , select the link A
to Z List of Databases, and choose a library database (like InfoTrac’s General
Onefile). Enter your Blackboard username and password.

III. Search for a book in the catalog from the Minuteman Library Network

Go to the library homepage and select the link “Books”. Enter a phrase or a
keyword in the search box and select “subject” or “keyword” and “Framingham
State College” in the drop down menus. To search for books in other libraries, select
“All locations” in the drop down menus. Here is a search for women AND prisons:

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 2
 Library Resources for Criminology

Once you find a book, write down the call number to help you find the book in the
library.

All full-time and part-time Framingham State College students can borrow books
from the Whittemore Library, as well as other libraries within the Minuteman Library
Network. Day and evening students must register with the library to
activate the student ID barcode or student ID number. It just takes 3
minutes to get your library card.

With your library card, you are able to request books and articles through
interlibrary loan (ILL). You can request a book or article through interlibrary loan
at http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary/illform.htm.Your request can take up to two
weeks to process. Please contact Neil Conrad at 508.626.4690 for questions on ILL.

IV. Conduct keyword searches to locate articles from popular magazines

and scholarly peer-reviewed journals:

For a listing of all of our research databases, select the A to Z List of Databases link
on the library webpage. You might need to authenticate by entering your
Blackboard account to access the library databases. Start your search with a
general search then refine your search with keywords and subject terms.

I recommend searching the following databases: SocIndex, Criminal Justice

Collection, Academic Search Premier and Lexis Nexis (for news).

Scholarly journals and popular magazines: Scholarly journals are published by

a professional society or association. In order for articles to be included in some
scholarly journals, they must be reviewed and accepted by an editorial board. These

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 3
 Library Resources for Criminology
journals are known as juried, refereed or peer reviewed journals. (Review yellow
sheet for characteristics). Popular, news, or opinion magazines provide an “average
person’s view of an issue”. These magazines do not report results of research
projects, have a peer review process and include annotated bibliographies.

Use Boolean operators and truncation:

• women AND prison – will combine the two search terms

• (women OR females) AND prison – will search for women and prison &
females and prison
• women AND prison* - will search for women and (prison, prisons)

An example of a general search in EbscoHOST’s SocIndex: women AND prison*

• Notice the subject terms that you can use to build other searches
• Limit your results; here I limited the results to include on scholarly journals
and within a date range.
• Select Article Linker to search for the full text article if the article is not
available full text in this database
• Ask-A-Librarian to get further help with your search.

If an article is not available full text in the database, select the link “Article Linker”
to check if any other library database has the article full text. If an article is not
available full text online in any of our databases, look for the red binders at the
library. They contain a list of all of the library’s print journals. If the article is not
available online or in print, place an interlibrary loan request.
Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.
Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 4
 Library Resources for Criminology

I. Save and organize your research within EbscoHost databases:

The vendor EbscoHost provides the ability for researchers to save their EbscoHost
articles into their own personal accounts.

Before you start your search, create a “MyEbscoHost” account. I recommend using
your Blackboard username and password to make it easier to remember your
account. After you create an account, begin your search. Save articles into your
account by selecting the link “Add to Folder”.

To view the saved article, go to “Folder” at the top of the page to access your
“MyEbscoHost” account. In my account, I created a folder for criminology by
selecting “New”. I can then move the article into the folder to help me organize my
research.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 5
 Library Resources for Criminology

II. Search for scholarly articles in Google Scholar:

Go to the library homepage and select the link A to Z List of Databases. Go to the
Google Scholar link. On the Google Scholar page, go to the link Scholar Preferences
and make sure that Framingham State College is listed as a preferred library.

When creating a search in Google Scholar, you do not need to link terms by “AND”.
Place quotation marks around phrases. Use nesting and OR to expand the search.
For example: (“women prisoners” OR "female prisoners"). Select “Find It
@Framingham” to locate the article full text. Google Scholar also indexes Google

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 6
 Library Resources for Criminology
Books. Further instructions on using Google Scholar:
http://library.fscmedia.com/2008/02/16/try-google-scholar/

III. Look up a journal to find out if the journal is available full text:

If you have a citation and would like to view any of the articles online, check to see
if the journal is available full-text online by entering the name of the journal in the
Full Text Journal Finder. (http://pj8tr3fm5l.search.serialssolutions.com/)

If the journal is available online, the results will list the research databases that
contain full text articles of the journal.

If an article is not available full-text, you can check to see if the library carries the
journal in print by looking up the title of the journal in the library catalog. For
questions on our print journals, please contact Deb Hogan, periodicals supervisor, at
dhogan@framingham.edu.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 7
 Library Resources for Criminology
IV. Citation Resources:

Style Guide for Students: American Sociological Association

http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/topnav/sociology_depts/quick_style_guide

APA Style Guide (sixth edition):

http://www.apastyle.org/

Duke University’s Citing Sources:

http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/

APA Formatting and Style Guide: The Owl at Purdue

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

The EBSCO and InfoTrac databases also have a feature where you can view how an
article is cited by several citation styles.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/wlibrary Page 8