Counseling 104: Career and Life Planning

This guide will help you locate, evaluate, and cite library resources.

After using this guide:

• Locate materials on careers and life planning in library and website resources.
• Evaluate your sources.
• Cite your sources.

Start by looking under 'Topics' menu or use the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom of the page to navigate through this guide.

This guide is to supplement and support your Counseling 104: Career and Life Planning class. This guide has been designed to highlight library resources to help you achieve these goals!

Library staff and faculty may use words that are unfamiliar to you. Below are the words you will hear most often in a library. 

Author  – This is the person who wrote a book or article.

Available (also Not Available) – In the catalog, available materials are those items that should be located on the shelf. 'Not Available' means they have been loaned out and will list a date that the material should be available again in the library.

Call number – This is the letter and number combination that is used to identify the location of a book on the shelf. It is like the address of the book. You can find this number pasted onto the book’s cover.

Catalog – The library catalog is online and holds information about all of the library’s books. You can search for a book on any topic using keywords. In the catalog, you will find a book’s title, author, and call number.

Check out – This is the action to take a book home. “I would like to check out a book” means “I would like to take this book home.”

Database – This is a central place that holds information, resources, and data. The library subscribes to many databases that you can use for your research to get good, scholarly resources for your assignments. You can also find newspaper articles, magazine articles, images, video and audio clips, and much more.

Dictionary – These books describe the meanings of words. Some dictionaries are written in more than one language and allow you to look up the English translation of a word in your language.

Due date – This is the date that you must return a book.

Encyclopedia – A large set of books (more than one volume) that contain short articles about almost any topic you can imagine. These articles will provide an overview of the topic, including key terms, dates, places, and more.

Fiction – Stories that are not true, or that never really happened.

Keyword – This is a word related to your topic that you use to search the library catalog and databases for information. For example, if you want a biography on Abraham Lincoln, the keywords would be “biography” and “Abraham Lincoln.”

Non-fiction – Stories that are true.

Peer-reviewed – (see also Scholarly or Academic) When an article is reviewed by experts in the field before it gets published. This ensures that each published article is accurate and current.

Plagiarism – This occurs when you copy someone else's words or ideas and do not give them credit. Plagiarism results in many negative consequences, including possibly failing a course.

Public Services Desk – This is the desk where you go to check out your books. 

Reference Desk – This desk is where the librarians are available to assist students and faculty with research and more! Consider them your "Research Coaches."

Renew – To check out a book again. If you already have a book checked out and you want to keep it longer, you can “renew” your book at the Public Services Desk.

Scholarly or Academic – (see also Peer-reviewed) A “scholarly” book or article is one that is written by an expert. It is also often reviewed by other experts in that subject (“peer-reviewed”) to make sure that the author's research and writing is good before it gets published.

Stacks – The shelves that hold the books in the library.

Subject – This is what the book is ABOUT. For example, the book could be about biology, math, history, or geography. Books are grouped together on the shelf according to their SUBJECT.

Title – This is the name of a book, article, or journal name.