Online Learners

Once you have chosen a topic, you may wish to look at a brief overview of your field of study. This will help with basic understanding of topics, as well as showing you the words that professionals use when discussing a topic. This will make other searches much easier.

Starting Points

• Gale Virtual Reference Library, more than 200 specialized encyclopedias dealing with a wide variety of topics.
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online, a very helpful general source
• Wikipedia

• Search for articles (organized by topic). You will need to log in and then select a database to search in.
• Full-text databases are identified by a FT next to the database name.
• A list of all our full-text journals is available; this is very useful for browsing tables of contents or finding a specific article if you already have a citation. Some databases may index a journal but not provide the full text of the articles in it. This will allow you to see if another database has the same article in full text.
• We may have the journal in print form here at the library. If you fill out this form, we'll see if we have it here.
• Finally, you can request a copy of an article by using our interlibrary loan service. We'll track down the article, from any library, and try to get a copy. You can use this form to make your request.

Internet resources are a popular and potentially very useful source of information for students.  Caution, however, is strongly advised when using Internet resources.  Remember that there is no quality control imposed on the Internet.  It is therefore up to you to determine whether a web site meets academic standards for scholarly, reliable information.  Following are some suggested resources for help in evaluating materials found on the internet:

• Call us at 951.785.2396 whenever the Library is open (see our hours schedule). Note that the reference desk is closed during lunch (noon-1) and dinner (5-6 p.m.), as well as after 10:00 PM. 
• Reference assistance is also available by e-mail library@lasierra.edu. 
• Or use our web form to Ask Us a Question. You should receive a response within 24 hours, although requests made over the weekend or on holidays may take a bit longer.