Q. I found a bibliography of sources on my topic. Is it okay to use those sources in my research, and how do I locate the items?

It's definitely ok to use the sources you find in the reference lists of other books and articles! The key to locating the items is to determine what format they are in.

If you need to locate a book, try searching for it by title in our APU Library Catalog (http://patris.apu.edu/) or in LINK+ (http://apu-csul.apu.edu:2083/ - it's free to request any book you find there).

If you need to locate an article, try searching for the journal title (not the article title) in our Periodical Finder (http://ae2zb3gz7x.search.serialssolutions.com/). If we have a subscription to the journal, the Periodical Finder will tell you how to locate the issues. If not, it will direct you to the ArticleReach service, where you can request free, scanned copies of articles from other libraries.

It is difficult to locate copies of master's theses, but we do have a database of doctoral dissertations. It contains digital full text copies of most dissertations published since 1997, so if you need to locate a dissertation the fastest way to do it is to search ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (http://0-proquest.umi.com.patris.apu.edu/login?COPT=REJTPUcyODcrNTNkMSszYjBmJklOVD0wJlZFUj0y&clientId=23686) for the title.

Finally, if you need to locate an ERIC document, you can type the ERIC number (usually something like ED510280) into the ERIC database (http://0-search.ebscohost.com.patris.apu.edu/login.aspx?profile=ehost&defaultdb=eric). The ERIC number search field is about halfway down the search page. If the database has a copy of the document, you'll see a link. Otherwise, it will offer you the option to use the full text finder to locate a copy in another database, or will direct you to look in the microfiche collection of ERIC documents in Marshburn Library.