Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2013 | Page 13

STEVENSON UNIVERSITY

Approaches to Library Research in Forensics
Maureen Beck and Sara Godbee
The twenty-first century researcher now has a wealth of tools at her
or his fingertips to help overcome information overload and achieve
targeted search results. The latest discovery tools and new reference
management software enable the researcher to achieve a high level of
organization and precision in conducting research. This article will
suggest a few ways to approach library research in the area of forensic
studies, including recommended strategies and specific resources.

Reference management tools like Zotero and Connotea capture
bibliographic information for online sources from websites to library
catalogs and databases. These and similar tools are free or offer free
versions and are either web based or can be synched from one computer or device to another. Though each reference management tool
works in its own unique way, they all offer similar features to the serious researcher making it easy to organize and track research sources.

Obviously, the researcher must cover multiple disciplines for this very
complex field, possibly tapping into research in criminology, sociology, computer science, psychology, law, medicine, etc., depending on
the nature of the specific topic. One traditional approach is to choose
databases with coverage in the relevant disciplinary areas, searching
each database separately. It is also possible with some vendors like
EBSCOhost to select multiple databases and search them simultaneously. However, there is almost always a loss in precision because
of the differences in the ways individual databases are organized,
even ones from a single vendor. Furthermore, each database has its
own discipline-specific vocabulary and it is crucial to learn how to
work with this feature to maximize search results. It can be helpful to browse through the thesaurus of terms for each database and
keep a running list of search terms as the researcher works through
the process. Another helpful technique is to locate one or two good
articles and incorporate the subject terms assigned to the article into a
new search statement. In addition, the researcher can scan the article
summary or abstract for different helpful keywords.

Zotero, originally designed as a Mozilla Firefox extension, now offers
a stand-alone or computer based version with connectors for Google
Chrome and Safari web browsers. Zotero allows users to capture
information about all types of items with records accessible on the
web. From a book in a catalog to a sound recording online, Zotero
will capture bibliographic information about an item along with web
addresses and file attachments when available.
Zotero allows for organization of reference sources within collections
along with tagging, thus making locating stored items easier. In addition, Zotero can produce bibliographic entries for the items stored
in a collection. With the use of word processor plug-ins, a complete
bibliography of sources used in a research project can be exported
from the Zotero stored information.
(www.zotero.org)
Connotea is an online or web-based reference management tool
targeted to the academic and scientific researcher. It allows users
to gather resources found online by saving the link to the web page
where the source was located. Connotea then adds the bibliographic
information. Because this tool is web-based, the user is computer
independent and can add documents or web pages to their resource
collection wherever and whenever they find it without the need to
synch their account.

One of the latest developments for researchers is the so-called discovery tool, now offered by many academic libraries. Stevenso