Midterm Examination
Library/Information Literacy

Topic 1 - Defining Information Needs

1. What is the difference between the Dewey Decimal System and the U.S. Library of Congress System?

2. What are secondary research sources?

3. What are tertiary research sources?

4. What are two characteristics of trade journals? Can trade journals be cited in a research paper?

5. What are three characteristics of a scholarly journal? Can they be cited in a research paper?

6. What is a peer reviewed journal?  Can they be cited in a research paper?

7. What is research?  Please state three processes for research?

8. Which journals contain pictures, advertising, persuades readers, and written for a broad appeal?

9. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is a book with call number 330.126 in a library.  Which system is this library using?

10. What is the difference between a subject and a topic?

Topic 2 - Information Needs and Strategies

1. Who is Johannes Gutenberg?

2. Why did the printing press create a revolution in society?

3. Which website is a great source for popular ebooks with expired copyrights (or public domain)?

(i). Do countries differ in copyright laws?
(ii) If Part (i) is true, which country has the longest copyright period?

4. Who is a gatekeeper? With the explosion of the internet, are keepers still around?

5. What are an advantage and disadvantage of an open source journal?

6. What are two problems using sources for research from webpages?

7. What is a benefit of a webpage compared to a printed book?

8. Can you use Wiikipedia.org in your research? Please explain.

9. What is a common research mistake?

10. How does a thesis differ from a research question?

Topic 3 - Database Searching

1. What are wildcards when yoiu do a keyword search?

2. A library records a book's author, title, subject, publisher, call number, and year.  When you do a keyword search, which information does the search engine use to find your information?

3. How do you include synonyms in a keyword search?

4. You are researching the topic, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Other synonyms are aliens and extraterrestial beings.  However, you want to exclude crazy people. How would you construct your keyword search?

5. How does the search engine search, if you enclose your keywords in quotation marks? Is this a good strategy for searching?

6. After you obtain results from your keyword search, what is the advantage of selecting articles that are highly cited?

7. What is a hierarchical search engine? Is Google a hierarchical search engine?

8. Why does Google, Amazon, and Microsoft allow readers to read only a small portion of an ebook?

9. Why do libraries avoid using Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to digitize and store ebooks?

10. Why is Google a poor choice to research scholarly journals?