Galileo Galilei was born the same year as William Shakespeare, 1564. They were the best in their fields, science and play writing, respectively.  And both ran into religion trouble--Shakespeare with the Puritans, who detested pretense and kept shutting down the theaters in London; and Galileo with the Catholics, who detested scientific discoveries they thought heretical. Galileo got into the deeper trouble--so deep, in fact, that the Pope almost had him executed for publishing a few things about the solar system that we take for granted today.  He still hasn't been pardoned by the Church, although he was sort of let off the hook a few years ago and the Pope more or less apologized recently. But don't take my word for it. Find a periodical article that is about both Galileo and the Vatican, and see if I'm telling the truth. (Would I lie to you? Could I be mistaken?) You can just search the Web and get some quick info about Galileo's problem.   But even though the Web is convenient, right now the big problem is that it's very hard to know what's true and what's not. Fortunately, reliable original sources are also available--if you know where to find them...

You've been exploring places mental and physical lately. Now here's another place to explore--the campus library.

I've discovered that a lot of college students are scared of the library. (I used to be one of them, myself--stayed out of the place my whole first year in college for fear that someone would find out I didn't know my way around in there.) That's unfortunate, because library is the world's memory, and declining to know how to get information out of it is sort of like volunteering for amnesia. Of course, you may not be that way at all--in which case this invitation should be a snap.

Anyway, just to be sure that you know your way around library and the library on this campus, I'm going to invite you to explore them--in two stages, first the virtual library and second the real library on this campus.

Please keep a log of your exploration, including locations of things and answers to the questions below. You may want to make notes on paper as you explore and then write them up as a public log later on. (That's note-taking practice--in case you were wondering.)
 

PART 1.  QUESTIONS--WHAT TO FIND OUT ABOUT

PERIODICALS

Why are most magazines called periodicals?           .

Find some periodical articles that are about both Galileo and the Vatican.     See if they answer these questions:

What was Galileo's crime?                       .

What is Galileo's current status as far as the Vatican is concerned?    .

For each useful article, write down the author's name, the article's title, the periodical's title, and the date.  And the page numbers where you find the answers to the questions above.  When you're looking at a web page, note the address.

Does our library possess a copy of that periodical?   .

Can you get the entire text online? If not, how can you get it?

PART 2.  PROCEDURE
The real trick is to find out where to look--and as soon as you start, you'll find that there are so many places to look!  So here's a little help: Galileo's problem is one relating to religion and science.  There are many, many published writings about Galileo in those fields (religion and science).  Let's just look at some recent periodical (magazine) articles for now.  Following the instructions below should give you a good idea of how to locate this kind of information for other searching projects.

NOTE: with each step you'll be narrowing the scope of your search.
 

1. Open a second browser window so that you can have this page and the new page open at the same time.  You can then switch between them.  (In Windows, by clicking on their buttons on the Taskbar, at the bottom of the screen.  Or by any of the other methods.)  Netscape's browser works best for this, but Internet Explorer will probably work, too.
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Step 2 should automatically open a new browser window. It will probably cover up this window, but both will still be available to you
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2. In the JSRCC home page, click on "Academic Resources" (in the menu at the left on that page), and in the next page select  "Library Resource Centers". And then select "Research Databases".

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(The college web site has been undergoing a lot of changes lately. If the instructions above haven't worked, try this direct link:  http://www.jsr.vccs.edu/jsr_lrc/databases/vivacoll.htm   It will also open in the new window.)
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3. Scroll    s l o w l y   all the way to the bottom of the page, looking to see what research databases are available here.  There are a lot of them, each for a different purpose or a different type of subject.  Try to get a sense of what they are and what kinds of articles they will search for you.  <---THIS IS IMPORTANT !   Most of the entries are indexes and bibliographies--that is, they each list zillions of periodical articles.  You'll see that there are many different kinds of these indexes.  Each has its own biases, or preferences.

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4. Come back to the top and click on "GaleNet".   (NOT the Old Interface.  In a pinch, try this link.) When that page arrives, scroll down it to see what's available in the GaleNet databases.  (There are 14 of them as I'm writing this on 25 November 2001.)  They're very different from each other.  Take time to read the descriptions.

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5. Now find "Info Trac One File." (We could have gotten here more quickly, but then you wouldn't know that this is only one of many, many, many choices available to us.) NOTE THE DATES:  1980-THIS MONTH.  This database does not include anything published before 1980.  (Real libraries contain publications going back thousands of years!)

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6. Click on Info Trac One File to begin searching for articles about Galileo, his crime, and his current status with the Vatican.  Notice what type of search the search engine is set to do. The choices are Subject guide, Relevance search, Keyword search, and Advanced search   You'll want to try them all, to find out what they each can do for you.

 
7. For some quick results, search for the keywords "galileo" and "inquisition".  You should get some hits--but they might not seem too productive, so click on the browser's Back button and try again.

 
8. This time search for the keywords "galileo" and "pope".  You should get some more useful looking hits.

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9. Look at several of these hits.  (REMEMBER: You'll be trying to find out about TWO things at once--Galileo and Library.  So take your time.) Click on "View"  (Tch!  In the search page.)

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10. Somewhere in that list of hits you should see the title of a Time magazine article that has as its subject Galileo and the Pope.  Click on "View test and retrieval choices."  This should show you the text of the magazine article.  And maybe AN answer to the question about Galileo and the Pope. AN answer--remember that!  If you stop here, it's like looking at ONE watch to find the time.  It might be right--but how will you know?!

 
11. You probably won't always be so lucky.  For example, go back and search again for "galileo vatican".  You probably won't get any results this time, or at least the text of the article probably won't appear.  So--go back to the search page and this time select the "Advanced Search" button in the left menu.  Try a few things--changing from "Key Word" to "Title" or "Date" and some other search criteria.

 
12. THEN:  In the menu at the left of the search page note that you are in "Advanced search" now.  Click on 'Subject guide" to get a somewhat different search screen.  Enter "galileo vatican" and click on Search.  Then select "View 2 articles."
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13. This time you probably won't see the text of an article, but instead a list of citations--a list of articles that are probably on that subject.  Click on "View extended citation and retrieval choices" and see what turns up.
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There are three terms to watch out for in a list of citations::

view text and retrieval choices ("Text" you know about.)
view abstract and retrieval choices (An abstract is a special kind of summary.)
view extended citation and retrieval choices  (See for yourself.)

14. You can have the text sent to you by email if you wish--later--but right now go on to the next step.

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15. Try all of the various search methods to find out how they work.  You may not need them today, but you DO need to know how to search.

 

By now you should have answers to those questions about Galileo, and you should also have a good idea of how InfoTrack searches work.  Other search tools work similarly, but each one searches different databases.
 

PART 3.  EXPLORE THE REST OF THE JSRCC VIRTUAL LIBRARY
Visit the web pages listed below and note in your log what you find on them, what they'll do for you, and how to use them. These links are essential starting places, and they'll lead you on to other web pages you'll also find useful. Try them all now.
 

JSRCC LIBRARIES
    http://www.jsr.vccs.edu/lrc/index.htm

LIBRARY CATALOGS
    http://www.jsr.vccs.edu/jsr_lrc/catalogs/default.htm

JSRCC Library Services
   http://www.jsr.vccs.edu/jsr_lrc/services.htm
 
 

PART 4.  NOW GO EXPLORE THE JSRCC PHYSICAL LIBRARY
Here are some things you should know about the physical library--

For what's relatively new, find the current periodicals.

Find the periodical list

Where are the microfilms kept?

How do you use a microfilm reader?

How do you print out a page?

Where do you look in the campus library to find what books are available on a subject, by an author, or by title?

How you can get a copy of a book that our library doesn't possess?

Find the circulation desk. See if you can get a library card if you don't already have one.

Where are the encyclopedias?

Books can be useful, too, some times.  Where are they kept?  How are they organized?

PART 3.  FINISHING UP

Please write up your log (including your answers to the Galileo questions) in a reasonably public form--so that it will make sense to other people.  It doesn't need to be a formal report, but it should be clear enough so that you can understand it a year from now.  Bring it to class next time.  (ONLINE CLASS--post your log in the Forum for this assignment.)

Your log doesn't need to be a big deal formal document, but it should be such that you can use it next year or several years hence as a guide to Library.  These particular online sources may not last forever, but they'll probably be available for quite a while.  And in any case, you'll know how to begin looking.

Whether or not Galileo is okay with the Inquisition probably isn't very important.  What IS important is that you have a good idea of what kinds of research sources are available to you--besides the obvious ones, like the Web, encyclopedias, and the like.

Remember also that on the Web and in these other online databases there's very little original information older than 15 years.  That may change, but right now, the paper ancestors of these online sources are invaluable.
 

Oh, yes.  Here are a few of the many web pages about Galileo Galilei:

Galileo's Home Page

Galileo

Galileo Casebook