To get to databases, go to the Libraries’ home page and click on databases under the search box. Databases will find journal/magazine/newspaper articles (and in some cases other materials like book chapters, dissertations, conference presentations, pamphlets, etc.)
Use the Search It box on the Libraries' home page to find books and other materials owned by K-State Libraries.
Most databases, although they look different, search in similar ways. You can search the databases in many ways to find relevant research, including:
If the database has a thesaurus, use it to help you find appropriate subject terms
Use a keyword search for the specific subject you are interested in (organizational, leadership, satisfaction, etc...)
Use OR when you want to find either of the search terms, AND when you want both.
Try truncating keywords using asterisks: financ* to get finance, finances, finanacial, financing, etc. .
Put phrases in quotes: “human resources", "job satisfaction"
Use limits to help find the specific kind of article you want. For example, PsycINFO lets you limit by population or type of study. Most datatabases have limits for date and type of material - you will often want to limit to scholarly journals.
Here is an example of a search using PsycINFO. The first line searches for "human resources". The quotes mean that it will search for the phrase "human resources" rather than human and resources as separate words. On the second line "satisf*" OR "happiness" means that it will find sources with EITHER of those words. The asterisk allows it to be a longer word, so we will get "satisfy", "satisfied", "satisfaction", etc.
When you find a good article, look for a "cited by" number. That means that your article appears in the bibliographies of those publications.
Many of the articles you find will be available online. If you don’t see the full text on the database you are searching, use the Get It button to see if the full text of the article is available through another source. If you find a citation to something that we don’t own, most of the time we can borrow it from another library. Articles generally arrive within a day or two, but it can take up to 5-7 business days for books (or longer if you are off campus). Click on “Interlibrary Loan” on the Libraries' home page or “Not available? Request from Interlibrary Loan” from the Get It menu. For more information, see our Interlibrary Services page.
In this case, we do not have online full text for this article. You can place an interlibrary loan request using the bottom link in the box.