Unit two

Researching an essay

Unit contents

The HKU Library catalogue

Most of your research for first-year essays and assignments will be done in the University Library catalogue. But did you know that HKU library has its own web site? Here are some of the things you can do without even setting foot in the library building.

• Find out if a book is available for loan.
• Find out if a journal is available in the library.
• Reserve a book if it is out on loan.
• Renew books you have borrowed.
• Search for books on a topic and email the results of the search to yourself.

Unfortunately, you still have to go to the library to read or borrow most books and journals.

How do you access the HKU Library catalogues?

The are several ways to access the HKU Library catalogues. Here are some useful links to bookmark.

• HKU Libraries home page
  This page has links to all the pages in the HKU Libraries web site.
• HKU Libraries Catalogue
  The home page for the library catalogue system. You should visit this page if you want to view your circulation record and renew books. You can also visit catalogues of other libraries from this page.
• Dragon
  The catalogue you will use most often is called Dragon. Dragon lists all the books and journals in the libraries on campus.
• Internet resources
  This page contains links to useful internet resources. It is classified according to the subjects taught in each faculty and department in HKU.

Searching for references to articles in books and journals

Dragon only contains references to books, journals and audio-visual materials. It does not contain references to articles in books or journals.

If you have a list of references for a course or an assignment, you can find the book references either by searching for the author or the title.

To look for a reference to an article in a book, you must search for the author or title of the book. Here is an example:

Pearson, V. (1990) Women in Hong Kong. In B.K.P. Leung, Social Issues in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 114-139.

To find this article, search for the author 'Leung BKP' or the title 'Social Issues in Hong Kong'.

To look for a reference to an article in a journal, you must search for the title of the journal. Here is an example:

Blowers, G. (1986) Pornography in Hong Kong: some points for consideration in the continuing debate. Bulletin of the Hong Kong Psychological Society 16/17, pp. 7-24.

To find this article, search for the title 'Bulletin of the Hong Kong Psychological Society'. You will need to know the call number of the journal and the volume number (16/17) to find this article on the shelf.

Tip: The titles of books and journals are often put in italics in bibliographical references. If you see a title in italics, this is what you should search for.

There is one exception to these rules on finding articles in books or journals. Some lecturers place photocopies of articles in the Reserve Book Room. In this case, the author and the title of the article will be in the Dragon catalogue.

Searching Dragon by keywords

If you are searching for information on a topic, you can search for keywords in Dragon. Here is a tip to speed up keyword searches if you already have one reference for your topic.

Let's say that you are looking for references on abnormal psychology and you have this reference already:

Barlow, D.H. (1995) Abnormal Psychology: an Integrative Approach. Pacific Grove, CA: Brookes/Cole.

Search for this reference in Dragon and display the details of the book. Then scroll down until you can see the keywords for the book. You will see that 'abnormal psychology' is not a key word in Dragon. The keywords for this book are 'Psychology, pathological' and 'Mental illness'. Click on the link for 'Psychology, pathological' to find more references on this topic.

Making a collection of references

You can also use Dragon to build up a collection of references that you can save on your computer or email to yourself.

• When Dragon displays a list of titles you will see that each title has a small box next to it under a column called 'Mark'. Click in this box to mark any title you are interested in.
• When you have marked the titles you are interested in, go to the bottom of the list and click the Save marked records button.
• When you have finished your session, click the Export marked records button.

Then follow the instructions on the screen to save your references on your computer or email them to yourself.