IT
Research Guide

 
 

Blue Ridge Community College
Houff Library

  
 
 Online Reference Sources - the first place to start research
 
Access Science - McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
ACRL's Computer Science: A guide to selected resources on the Internet
 Association for Computing Machinery
Association of Information Technology Professionals
Business, A Dictionary of
 Computing, A Dictionary of
Economics, A Dictionary of
Encyclopedia of Information Systems
Freedictionary.com - legal, financial and computer dictionaries, plus a thesaurus, acronyms and encyclopedias.
Google Scholar
Industry Information Resources
Internet, A Dictionary of the
Internet Public Library:  Computers & Internet
Librarian's Internet Index:  Computer Web Sites You Can Trust
NetLingo  - an online dictionary explaining the technology and community of the world wide web, email, chat, and newsgroups
 TechEncyclopedia  - defines over 20,000 terms
Webopedia - the only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology.
 
 Books and Print Resources - no limit on how many books you can check out at one time.  Our checkout period is four weeks.  Library cards are free at the Circulation Desk.
 
 
- To find books in the Library, search the BRCC Online Catalog  
 
Quick Book Search:          
  
 

 

  

Safari’s business and information technology eBook collection Safari eBooks includes titles from publishers such as O’Reilly, Addison-Wesley, Sams, Que,Cisco Press, Microsoft Press, and some 20 others. These publishers represent the leaders in the IT publishing industry, and we have access to over 3,000 of their titles.
Resources for locating books from other libraries.  
WorldCat 88+ million books worldwide
James Madison University
Old Dominion University
University of Virginia
Virginia Tech Library Online Catalog

If you find a title you would like, use the Library's free interlibrary loan service. Print the title's information (citation) and bring it into the Library (click here for our hours) or copy and paste the citation into our E-mail a Librarian online form.  
 
 Periodical Indexes (Magazines, Journals & Newspapers) - print articles from actual magazines, journals and newspapers.  For free.
 
*Be sure and follow all the steps on our Remote Access Directions page to be able to access these databases from your home computer.

If you need peer-reviewed/refereed articles, be sure to click that box if the database you are using offers that option on their search screen.  Click here for a five minute video that explains all about peer reviewed articles.

Business Related Databases:
 ACM Digital Library (Assoc.of Computing Machinery)   
Business Source Complete Indexing and abstracts for tens of thousands of business publications.
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts - Computer Science and Engineering  
 Computers & Applied Sciences Complete
Factiva (must use Internet Explorer) FULL-TEXT articles from many national and international magazines, journals, newspapers, and newswires.  Information back to 1969.
 JSTOR  - BRCC now subscribes the JSTOR Business I and II  modules - many articles way back.
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)
Regional Business News - provides comprehensive full text coverage for regional business publications, incorporates coverage of 75 business journals, newspapers and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States. 
Wiley InterScience  - over 3 million articles across 1400 journals

General Academic Databases
 Academic Search Complete Full-text articles available
 Associates Programs Source Full-text articles available

If you cannot find an article full-text you would like, use the Library's free interlibrary loan service. Print the article's information (citation) and bring it into the Library (click here for our hours) or copy and paste the citation into our E-mail a Librarian online form.  

Subject Guide to Online Periodical Databases - all of our 200+ databases are listed by subject.
 
 Internet Evaluation - use only scholarly websites at the college level
 

Evaluating Online Resources - ask yourself these four questions each time you surf.
 
 
 Style Guides - for MLA and APA citations for your bibliography
 

Citation Machine - fill in boxes and it will make your citations for you
 More citation builders
Citation Style for Research Papers (includes APA, MLA, and AMA) - to double check your citations.

 
Assistance - just in case
 
Question?  E-Mail a Librarian - online form to ask a quick question of the Librarian.
LRC Live - 24/7 real time online help from librarians across the country, Hawaii, and New Zealand
 Online Suggestion Box - your tuition and fees help pay for the library so let us know what we can do for you.
5/26/09