Whittemore Library: Marketing Resources: Our Library Collection & Search Tools

Information You'll be Using

Background Info: Basic, Authoritative, 'Facts', 'Intel'
"What's already known & established about my search topic?"
AKA: 'Reference Information'
Found in:
-- Dictionaries
-- Encyclopedias
-- Specialized Handbooks
-- Directories
-- Specialized Database Business Intel Products (such as Company Profiles or Market Reports)
-- Government Websites (such as Regulatory info. or relevant statistics)
News & Trends
"What has been, or is currently being reported about my search topic?"
Found in:
-- Newspapers, online or off-
-- Databases containing Newswires/Newspaper/Newsletter content
-- Databases containing Trade Journal content
-- Online equivalents of Trade Journals (of varying quality)
Detailed, 'Deep-Dive', 'What Works' Analysis
"They're doing research connected to my topic! First research studies, then sometimes also really detailed, scholarly books. What are they saying about it right now?"
AKA: Scholarly Journal Articles and Scholarly Books ('Monographs')
Found in:
-- Academic Databases with Journal Articles
-- Online Academic Journals
-- Academic Monographs (Online and Print)
-- Reports, Working Papers, Conference Proceedings, Dissertations (In databases but also online, and aka 'Grey Literature')

Our Search Tools

In other words....all the 'search interfaces' - the individual databases and other places - where you can actually look for the information you need, and often, get immediate access to the full text. Or, if it's one of our print books, get the info you need to go retrieve it from our book shelves.

The Minuteman Network Catalog
The Whittemore Library belongs to this MetroWest network of 40+ libraries; together we save money on, and share our resources. Print books owned by other Minuteman libraries (but not FSU) can be borrowed online, whereupon they will be quickly sent here for you to pick up and use.
Best For:
-- Print Reference Books owned by FSU (In the 1st floor Quiet Study Room)
-- Print books owned by FSU and by other Minuteman libraries
-- Any 'legacy' physical media forms (CDs, DVD, Blue-Rays, Books on cassette tapes, etc.)
-- Minuteman's Libby/Overdrive & Kindle eBooks, shared by all
-- Minuteman's Streaming Audiobooks, shared by all
-- Minuteman's eMagazines (popular digital magazines), shared by all
A List of All Our Databases
Listed A - Z. Sortable; can limit by subject or format type.
Best for:
-- Articles, because the majority of our scholarly journal articles can be found here.
-- eBooks (Digital reference books and scholarly books). Most of ours are in a few eBook databases.
-- Streaming Documentaries and Instructional Videos. We have a few video databases that Ram Search cannot search; you must search in them directly.
Publication (Journal) Search
A way to look for individual journals directly, by title, without going through a database.
Best for:
-- Articles
The 3 general business periodicals that EVERYONE recommends, without fail:
-- Harvard Business Review
-- New York Times
-- Wall Street Journal
Ram Search
'Ram Search' is a 'federated search engine' that can search almost all our databases at the same time - except for our streaming video databases and our Gale reference e-book database.. Returns results (usually many...too many) in all formats, so we recommend that you 'limit' your results, post-search, to narrow it all down to a more reasonable number. But it really is a good place to get started, and especially helpful for interdisciplinary topics.
Best for:
-- Delivers a bit of everything, including print books owned only by FSU. Many people use it to efficiently find peer-reviewed articles, though.