Just as in life, it is best to use the right tool for the right task. A hammer is best used on nails, not on lightbulbs. Knowing what types of materials are available for use is important, but so is knowing how to use them. This page should help you understand what the various materials are and how to use them.
As a library we are a repository of informational materials. We have information in many different formats (Books, journals, magazines, CDs, DVDs, .mp3s, and even VHS).
Our WorldCat Discovery catalog is a catalog of all of our books and various media. It, by default, also has some eBooks and some journals articles, but not all. To try and search all of our materials, you would have to change which databases are included in the search.
From there, you would check the boxes for all the databases that you want added to your search. This is a nice way to search most of our materials. This will not search 100% of the catalog with equal precision. The problem is that some databases interface just a little differently than Discovery, so some things are not discoverable though Discovery. To solve that problem, it is sometimes necessary to go to the individual databases themselves.
EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly) - Email a Life Pacific College Librarian to receive the username and password (we have limited access to this resource). Once you have received the username and password got to: EMQ signin page.
Digital Reference Materials
Reference materials are general or broad knowledge resources. These items are searchable by topic and will produce results that can be considered academic and scholarly.
The internet is an incredible source of misinformation and inaccuracies. Searching the internet can reveal some good information, but it is sometimes hard to tell truth from fiction.
In general, always check the "about us" page of every website before using it for information. As a rule, do not use sites that do not reveal who they are, are the work of an individual, or are the work of someone that is not published.
For raw data, the various government sites are very helpful. Look for the .gov at the end of the URL to identify it as coming from the federal government. The various states are identified as the two letter postal code followed by .us, so California would be .ca.us. Dot CA, by itself is the Canadian country code.
For academic works, I would recommend limiting your internet searches to Universities, colleges, museums and libraries. In the US those are all identified with .edu in the URL. .ac is used in most of the rest of the English speaking world for academic institutions.
To limit your searches to those domains, use google.com/advanced_search. Go to the "sites or domains" section and enter ".edu .ac". Or from the basic search bar enter "site:.edu OR site:.ac" with the rest of your search query. Notice that there are no spaces between the colon and what follows.
Life Pacific University Alumni Library | 1100 W. Covina Blvd | San Dimas, CA 91773 | Ph: (909) 706-3009 | Email: library@lifepacific.edu
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