Introduction

The activities you will complete for this assignment are designed to further your knowledge of the LionSearch tool and improve your ability to use LionSearch to find the information you need. To complete this assignment you will:

• Review the webpage LionSearch Searching Basics and the Basic and Advanced searching guides Penn State libraries provides.

• Answer questions based the readings.

• Conduct a query and report your results.

Step 1 - Learning to use LionSearch

Once there click on the Searching and Results tab and read the material presented there. After reading the Searching and Results material answer the following questions in order (please number your answers to correspond with the question numbers):

1. List the three Boolean operators the LionSearch accepts and describe the operation each performs.

2. Explain the difference between the query "information systems" and information systems.

3. If you wanted to see if the Penn State Libraries had a book but only knew the ISBN number (0521337399) what is the query you would need to enter?

a. What is the title of the book?

b. Who is the author?

Step 2 - Learning about Queries

Good query design is critical to the effective use of any search engine. In this step you will submit different queries and report on the results.

1. In LionSearch enter the query penn state. Note how many results LionSearch returned.

2. In LionSearch enter the query "penn state". Were more or fewer results returned? Explain why.

3. In LionSearch enter the query "penn state" NOT football. How many results were returned? What is this query asking the search engine to find?

Step 3 - Create your Own Query

In this step you will create your own query, run it, and report on the results. The query should be on something related to computers, information technology, or information systems.

1. Describe the subject you seek information on:

2. List the query you will use to find the information about the subject you chose. Remember to consider using Boolean operators to improve your results.

3. How many results were returned from your query?

4. List the titles of the first three results returned:

5. Did the query return good results? If yes, state why you think so. If no, state how you would change your query to get better results.

6. Filter the results to include only those materials Penn State has access to online.

7. Save the first three results to your basket.

8. List the titles of the items in the basket and include the links to the materials (you can right---click on the ‘Link' hyper link and select "Copy Link" or "Copy Link Location" and then paste it into the document."

9. Format the search results in APA format, copy and paste them into this document.

10. Change the sorting to newest and list the first result returned.