Skip to Main Content

First Year Seminars: FYS 178 Experimental Avatar

In-Class Searching

Searching in Muscat Plus

Muscat Plus

Build an Effective Search

Start with a keyword search which searches book titles, authors, subject headings, book descriptions, etc.

  • Use AND and OR to broaden or narrow your search

    • For example: consumer OR shopper

    • For example: experiment AND economic AND price AND incentive

  • You can search for specific phrases by using quotation marks.

    • For example: "economic experiment" AND "consumer behavior"

  • An asterisk* will let you search for the root of a word and any variation after the asterisk

    • For example: child* = child, children, children's

Borrowing Materials from Another Library

text from catalog with button to request a digital copy and have it within 24 hours by emailWe have a lot of items, but not everything you'll need during your time at Gettysburg.

Interlibrary loan is a service that allows you  to borrow materials unavailable at Musselman Library from other libraries around the world. Articles usually arrive in 24 hours. Books may take 4-7 days.

Interlibrary loan is fully integrated into library databases via the Gett It button and MUSCAT Plus, the library catalog. You are able to make and manage requests through your library account.

Watch for the "Gett It" button in databases. small button with the words Gett It! Clicking it will check to see if we have the item in our collection and direct you to request a copy from another library if we don't.

Searching in Databases for Scholarly Articles or News

The library subscribes to over 300 databases that cover all subjects and disciplines. Search databases to find peer-review articles on your topic from scholarly journals. Additionally, be sure to browse the Research Guides to identify other databases in a specific discipline (Religion, Africana Studies, Political Science, etc.).

Not available full-text online? Follow these instructions to get a copy of the article:
  • Find a Journal. Use the Find a Journal option in MUSCAT Plus to search all of the titles of
    journals, magazines, and newspapers that Musselman Library has, both in print and online.
    It will tell you if we have a specific journal or magazine, and if so, what years are available. 
  • Request articles via Interlibrary Loan. If we don’t have the journal, we can get it for you
    from another library. 

Suggested Databases

General and Interdisciplinary
Disciplinary

Citation Help

Online Help with MLA

Zotero

Zotero icon of red letter Z in grey box

Zotero is citation-management software, which means it helps you collect, manage, and cite any sources you find. It’s useful for staying organized, but it also helps by saving you time during the research process.

Since it’s an open-source tool, you can create a free account as you long as you’re fine with having a 300MB storage limit. This tends to be more than enough storage for people’s time at Gettysburg.

For a quick overview, see Gettysburg's guide to Zotero.