Who, Where, and When The following print and electronic sources will help you find answers in a hurry. These are just a few of the resources available in the UNF Library's print and electronic collections, but they are representative of the scope of the collections.

Who The library maintains subscriptions to numerous biographical sources, both national and international in scope. For every discipline or interest, there is usually a biographical reference published. Most people have heard of the Who's Who series of biographical directories. UNF Library subscribes to many of these. A quick way to find these publications is to do a quick keyword search of the WebLUIS catalog using the words "whos who" and a general topic covering your specific interest. For example, a keyword search on "whos who women" will show that UNF Library has the Who's Who of American Women, the International Who's Who of Women, and the Who's Who and Why of Successful Florida Women, to name a few. This approach will typically work in our catalog as long as your category remains broad. For example, the keyword search on "whos who industry" will get you the Who's Who in Finance and Industry, a good source for finding information on current and past business leaders.

Another way to scan the library's collections for biographical sources is to do a more general search for biographical dictionaries. For example, try searching by keyword for the words "music biograph? diction?". You'll discover a number of sources in the library that provide biographical information on musicians, including Brainard's Biographies of American Musicians, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, and a number of other standard sources of quick biographical information on musicians. This approach will work for almost any area of interest or study and help you find the right source in the library in a hurry. (Tip: Words that may be singular, plural, or have other endings can be searched in the WebLUIS system using the root word ending with a question mark. The example above illustrates the proper use of the question mark in a search of the library's catalog.) Link to the Catalog and do a search.

If you have only a name and no knowledge of the person's background or time period, you should begin with a comprehensive index to biographical sources like the Biography and Genealogy Master Index. This multi-volume reference identifies biographical sources for thousands of people in all walks of life and throughout history in hundreds of print publications. The UNF Library keeps this master index in its Reference Collection and also provides access to it online through its subscription to GaleNet. Try the index in our Reference Collection by going to the shelf number CT213 .B5. You'll see the index is divided into spans of years, so your search may take several steps. To search the index online, go the the Library's Webpage, click on "List of Databases," and look for the link to the Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Most people prefer the online access, but the library also keeps the book version if ever the computer access is not available.

To test your ability at working the system, find information on the following people:

For each, answer the questions Who?, Where?, and When? and describe how you found the information.

Where It's usually not terribly difficult to find information about places using the library's print and electronic collections. A quick way to locate a place online is to use Britannica Online, the online version of the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica or to use Yahoo's classified listing of Web sites to track information on a place. This approach may not always work, so you will also want to know how to find information in books in the library's collections. The second floor Reference Collection provides researchers with numerous sources for identifying places and for finding information about the places once they've been identified. You might begin your search for information by using an atlas or a gazetteer. Atlases may also cover specific topics as well. For example, the library has a publication called the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States which provides information on dialects in the southernmost United States. To check for an atlas or gazetteer, use the same keyword approach that you used for finding biographical dictionaries. Do a keyword search of the library's catalog using a general subject with either "atlas?" or "gazetteer?". For example, to find a world gazetteer, perform the keyword search "world gazetteer?". This will lead you to the Columbia Gazetteer of the World along with a number of other sources that give geographical information.

For quick information on countries of the world, the Reference Collection provides some excellent resources. Peruse the Europa World Yearbook or the Countries of the World and Their Leaders, for example, to find concise information about the country's people, its history, its industry, its economy, and its social structure and organization. These sources are updated yearly and provide the latest data available on all the world's countries. Search the WebLUIS catalog by title to find either of these publications. Link to the Catalog and do a search.

Now, some questions.

What was Brazil's population in 1980? What was the Gross National Product of Thailand in 1986? For each question tell where you found the information and how you went about identifying an appropriate information source.

When The library's Reference Collection is a great place to go for information on national and world events. You can locate information on what happened when in seconds if you find the right source. If you're not sure of the time period, but have a general idea of the type of occurrence, you can find a number of chronologies in Reference both for United States and world events. For example, a keyword search of the library's WebLUIS catalog for the words "chronol? world history" will provide you with location information on the Chronology of World History, a handy reference that will let you pinpoint events from the beginning of recorded history up to the end of the 20th century. If your focus is just on American history, try the keyword search "chronol? america?" and you'll be pointed to the American Chronicle: Year by Year Throughout the Twentieth Century. These types of references have indexes by topics and names that will help you isolate events and get the correct dates. Once you have dates, searching for additional information sources will be easier.

For quick information on world events from the 1940s to date, try going to Facts on File. This updated news service will provide you with exact dates and specific details of newsworthy occurrences throughout the world. To locate this and any of the other references mentioned above, search the library's WebLUIS catalog by title. Link to the Catalog and do a search. The library also provides access to electronic news services. Two of the most comprehensive sources that allow you to search for information by topic and retrieve full-text articles online are the Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) and NewsBank. Both services are easily located by going to the library's Web page and clicking on the "List of Databases" link. With proper identification you can also use these services off campus. The "List of Databases" page provides instructions on how to connect from home.

Answer the following questions either by using the online sources or by finding an appropriate print reference in the library's Reference Collection.

For each of the above, describe how you went about finding the answer.

Why So, why go through the above exercises? In most information searches you find references to people, to places, and to events that you will need further information on in order to understand a situation better. The above examples should illustrate how valuable a library's collections, both print and electronic, can be in finding answers fast.