Research Guides

COURSE: HSS4, Section A / Wittgenstein

Contacts
General Research Information
Searching for Books -- the Online Catalog
On Reserve for this Class
Reference Books
Browsing the Stacks

Searching for Articles -- Journals
Google Tips
Other Libraries
Interlibrary Loan / Referrals
Film & Video

Contacts

Julie Castelluzzo, Electronic Services Librarian
email: juliec (at cooper)
OR any of the librarians. (See Library Web site under Personnel.)

Circulation Desk: 212-353-4188
Reference Desk: 212-353-4186

Library Web Site

http://www.cooper.edu/facilities/library/library.html (Mar. 13, 2008)

This Research Guide: http://www.cooper.edu/facilities/library/research_frameset.html (Mar. 13, 2008)

See our General Research Information page for guides such as these:

• Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals
  (Your instructor may require that a certain percentage of your sources are 'peer-reviewed,' aka 'referreed' or 'peer-edited.')

• Citing sources and citation styles
  (There are links to more than one guide in this area.) Look at the examples of citations for different types of sources, such as a journal article or a Web site. Pay attention to the elements or fields that should be included in the citation, including the date accessed for a Web site.

• Recommended Search Strategy
  Analyze your topic, pick a good starting point for your search, vary your approach, and don't get bogged down in a strategy that isn't working.

• Evaluating Web sites and other information sources
  (There are links to more than one guide in this area.) Some questions to ask: Is the source authoritative? How recent is the information? What is the point of view or bias of the author?

Searching for Books (and more) -- the Online Catalog

http://www.bobcat.nyu.edu (Mar. 13, 2008)

BobCat is the online catalog for our Library Consortium. It contains records for books, journals and other items owned or selected by the participating libraries. Our Consortium includes the Cooper Union Library, most NYU libraries, and The New School libraries.

Records for electronic books and journals are included in the online catalog. You may see multiple formats for the same title.

To find out which library owns an item, look at the bottom of the full record. The library location appears to the left of the call number.

Cooper Union items are indicated by: CU Cooper [collection] [call number]

Tips:

• BobCat works best using Internet Explorer. With other browsers, some records may not display correctly

• Search BobCat to find books (monographs) or to find out which library subscribes to a journal or magazine. Generally, you will NOT find specific articles from journals in the catalog. To find articles, use one of the article databases listed in the Searching for Articles section of this document.

• If you try a phrase search and do not get many (or any) hits, switch to a keyword search. In a keyword search the order of the words does not matter. In a phrase search the order of the words must be correct and start from the beginning of the phrase to get accurate results.

• Searches ignore punctuation and are not case sensitive.

• To find items about an author or about an author's work (instead of items written by that person), search for the person's name in the subject field (not the author field).

• When searching for material about a philosopher, you may find it useful to combine the person's name with the term 'contributions' or 'interpretation' or 'views.' Try a keyword search in the subject field, for example:
  ludwig wittgenstein interpretation

• Browse the subject headings about an author using a phrase search in the subject field, for example:
  wittgenstein, ludwig

• When you find a particularly good item for your topic, look at all of the subject headings in the full record. You can spawn new searches by clicking on those headings.

• Some, but not all, electronic books and journals owned by the libraries have records in the catalog. See also the CU Library Web site and the Consortium libraries' sites for links to many other electronic resources.

• BobCat contains records for some libraries not in the Consortium (e.g., NY School of Interior Design, Brooklyn Historical Society, and NY Historical Society). You do not have borrowing privileges at those libraries.

To get any of these books, write down the call number and bring it to the person working at the Circulation Desk.

You can search the Online Catalog (BobCat) specifically for reserves, by Instructor and Course Number, as well as Title and Author. After you connect to BobCat, choose On Reserve as the catalog to search.

Most reserve books are available for 2 hour loan during the day, and overnight after 4pm.

Philosophical investigations : the German text, with a revised English translation / by Ludwig Wittgenstein ; translated by G.E.M. Anscombe.
B3376.W563 P53 2001

Preliminary studies for the "Philosophical investigations" : generally known as the Blue and Brown books / by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
B3376.W563 P6 1965

Tractatus logico-philosophicus : the German text of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung / with a new edition of the translation by D.F. Pears & B.F. McGuinness and with the introduction by Bertrand Russell.
BC135 .W5 1972

Other Libraries (See our Web site for links to other library catalogs.)

• Consortium Libraries
  
  Cooper Union students may borrow books at most Consortium libraries and use other materials while there. Your Cooper Union ID gets you in to the Consortium libraries and serves as your library card. Be sure you have the current semester validation sticker and register with our library before going to the other libraries. If you already registered with the Library but have not used your account recently, check with someone at our Circulation Desk to be sure your record is up to date.
  
  Bobst Library – NYU's main library.
  70 Washington Square South
  http://library.nyu.edu/ (Mar. 13, 2008)
  
  Fogelman Library -- The New School library for social science & humanities.
  65 Fifth Avenue, lower level (between 13th and 14th Streets)
  http://library.newschool.edu/fogelman/ (Mar. 13, 2008)
  

• The New York Public Library
  http://www.nypl.org (Mar. 13, 2008)
  
  The Research Libraries: These collections are for research on site only (non-circulating). The libraries are open to the public. Most materials are in closed stacks, and you need an Access Card to request them. To get an item, you submit a call slip to an information desk and wait for someone to retrieve it. For information about the Access Card, see
  http://www.nypl.org/research/general/access.html (Mar. 13, 2008)

  Humanities & Social Sciences Library
  42^nd Street at 5^th Avenue
  http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/index.html (Mar. 13, 2008)

  Branch Libraries (including The Neighborhood Branches and The Central Libraries): These are the lending libraries in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. (Queens and Brooklyn have separate library systems.) You do not need a card for onsite use of these libraries. Get a Branch Libraries card if you wish to borrow materials and use some electronic resources from offsite.
  
  Branches and Hours: http://www.nypl.org/hours/ (Mar. 13, 2008)
  Library Cards information: http://www.nypl.org/books/ (Mar. 13, 2008)
  

Searching for Articles -- Journals

Electronic Journals -- Good News and Bad News

Much of the journal literature published today is available electronically. However, most of that content is not available for free. Someone must pay for access to the online full text, because most publishers and authors do not give away their copyrighted material.

The good news: You can access many electronic journals through the online catalog (BobCat), our Library's Web site, at the Consortium libraries, and at New York Public Library. You can get to the Cooper Union Library's databases from anywhere on campus, or even from off campus. Most of the databases have an email feature so that you can save results and send them to yourself for safe keeping.

The bad news: For databases at other Consortium libraries, such as NYU's Bobst Library, you must physically be using a computer on those networks in order to access electronic resources paid for by those libraries. In other words, you cannot use NYU's databases from a computer at Cooper Union.

More bad news: All articles are not available online. If you want to find an article that you have the citation for, follow the instructions below on Getting the Article.

More good news: The Cooper Union Library subscribes to approximately 5000 full text electronic journals and newspapers.

More bad news: Many of the electronic journals we subscribe to are not listed in BobCat. (You can find title lists in the database descriptions on our Web site.

Searching for Articles

Use an article database to start searching. Those listed below should be particularly useful for this class. The search results will show records with a citation to the article (title of article, author of article, the journal it appeared in, the date of the issue date, and page numbers). Be sure to save all of the information from the citations. You will use those in the bibliography for your paper.

Some of the search results will include a link to the full text of the article online. However, every journal article is not available online! Some of those that are not available at the click of a button could be excellent resources for your topic of interest. Getting the full text will often mean doing another search and taking a walk. See section below on Getting the Article..

Peer-reviewed Journals

Within the broader category of periodicals, those called 'journals' are usually more scholarly than those called 'magazines.' However, calling something a journal does not make it scholarly. Some publications have a much more rigorous and formal process to decide what gets published and what does not. Peer-review is the gold standard. Any article submitted to a peer-reviewed publication is read by a group of professionals in the field the article pertains to. That group of professional peers either rejects it or approves it for publication.

Getting the Article

If you have a citation to an article that is not available online, follow these steps to track it down:

1. Save a copy of the complete citation for the article (even if the article is available online). If you use the article as one of the research sources for your paper, you will need the citation for footnotes and/or the bibliography.

2. Determine which libraries have the journal that the article appeared in. Search the online catalog (BobCat) for the journal title or ISSN. Do not search for the article title or author of the article.
   
   Use the ISSN for a very targeted search. The ISSN uniquely identifies a journal, just as an ISBN uniquely identifies an edition of a book.

3. If there is a record in BobCat for the journal you need, go all the way into the Full Record. The Library Has field shows which libraries have the journal and the date ranges of the holdings. Check to see if the specific year or issue number you need is included. If it is, go to that library and get the article. If not, go on to the next step.
   
   For electronic journals, the BobCat record will have a link or links to the actual resource online. You must be using a computer within the network of the owning institution in order for that link to work. If the owning institution is NYU, you must be using a computer on the NYU campus in order for the link to work.

4. If the journal you need is not available in the consortium libraries, try searching in the New York Public Library catalogs (CATNYP and LEO), or talk to one of our librarians to get help with your search.
   
   See also the section of this document on Interlibrary Loan / Referrals / Article Orders.
   
   Time is of the essence when it comes to these types of requests. The earlier you do your initial searching, the more time you will have to track down the articles you want.

The CU Library

Our library subscribes to many different article databases. Those listed below should be particularly useful for this course. See our Web site under Article Indexes · Internet Resources for more electronic offerings.

We recommend that you start with Humanities Abstracts.

Tip: Because our library collection is highly specialized, many sources you'll want will be at other libraries. However, we have databases to use for your initial searching and our librarians will spend considerable time with you when you need help. We communicate with your instructors, and find out as much as we can about students' needs for course assignments.

Tip: In some databases (including Humanities Abstracts), the result lists may indicate that our library owns the item (or does not). This is not always accurate, for a variety of reasons -- there can be delays in uploading our data; it only indicates that we own a journal, not necessarily the specific issue you need; and to further complicate things, it may not list Cooper Union at all even though we do have the issue. Check BobCat for library holdings to be sure which libraries have what. Also, check the title list for Wilson Select Plus.

Remote access to CU Library databases: All Web-based databases from our Library are available campuswide at Cooper Union. Off campus access is available via the Library Web site – follow the link to Off Campus Database Access. Be sure that your library registration is up to date and that there are no blocks on your account. (The most common reason for a block is having $5 or more in fines.)

• *** Humanities Abstracts ***
  Probably the best place to start your search. Covers core periodicals in disciplines such as language and literature, archaeology, classical studies, folklore, history, religion and theology, and philosophy. Includes some links to full text articles. Updated weekly, starts with 1984. Check included titles here.
  
  Tip: To search for peer-reviewed articles, use the Advanced Search Screen. Search for 'peer-reviewed journal' in the Reviewed Journal Phrase field.
  
  Tip: Finding older articles: NYU has the database Humanities & Social Sciences Retrospective, which includes older indexes from the same database producer.
  

• Wilson Select Plus
  Full text articles (some with images) from indexes such as Social Sciences Index, Humanities Index, and Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. Updated weekly, starts with 1994. Check included titles here.
  
  Tip: To search for peer-reviewed articles, use the Advanced Search Screen. Search for 'peer-reviewed journal' in the Reviewed Journal Phrase field.

NYU's Bobst Library and New School University's Fogelman Library

• Philosopher's Index
  Indexing and abstracts from books and journals of philosophy and related fields. It covers the areas of ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, logic, and metaphysics as well as material on the philosophy of disciplines, such as law, religion, science, history, and education. 1940 - present.
  

• Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective (Bobst only)
  Includes the following: International index: 1907-1965; Social sciences & humanities index: 1965-1974; Humanities index: 1974-1984; Social sciences index:1974-1983.
  
  
• JSTOR -- All JSTOR collections are available at Bobst Library. Fogelman Library has JSTOR Arts & Sciences I-V Plus Compliment.
  
  JSTOR is an archive of scholarly journals with high-quality page images. For a complete list of the titles with dates of coverage, click here.
  
  It does not contain recent articles. Over 90% of journal issues are more than three years old.
  
  Because JSTOR was designed as a digital archive, not a searching tool, searching features are limited compared to most article databases. There is no consistent subject indexing of the article content, abstracts, or tagging of descriptors. For subject searching, it may be better to use one of the other article databases described in this section, and link to JSTOR when needed.

Google Tips

• Advanced Searching in Google
  On the main Google search screen, to the right of the search box is an Advanced Search link. Use the Advanced Search to limit by date, domain, format, usage rights, and more.
  
  
• Google Scholar (BETA)
  http://scholar.google.com (Mar. 13, 2008)
  Searches scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Includes some full text, but most results will contain only citations and abstracts. There is no list of included publishers, titles, or dates of coverage.
  
  
• Google Book Search (BETA)
  http://books.google.com (Mar. 13, 2008)
  Google has scanned the full text of entire books and made that text searchable. The book content comes from two sources: publishers and libraries.

Interlibrary Loan / Referrals / Article Orders

If an item you need is not available in the Consortium or New York Public Library collections, we can usually locate a copy for you. We can give you a referral card to gain access to a private library, borrow items from other libraries for you, and order copies of articles.

The Library will pay fees up to $15 for article orders and interlibrary loans. If a fee will be higher than $15, you will be contacted to determine if you are willing to pay the additional cost.

• We have access to holdings information for hundreds of libraries through the WorldCat database. You can search it from our Web site. Follow the link to Other Library Catalogs on our home page.

• We use electronic methods of request and delivery whenever possible to minimize turnaround time.

Last updated April 17, 2008