To locate a relevant book, begin by visiting WebCat, the Rio Hondo Library catalog of holdings. (WebCat is located on your Table of Contents under "Online Tools," as well as on the Rio Hondo Library Web Site.) After connecting to WebCat from a remote location, you MAY receive the following message:

If you receive this message, simply click OK. A new window will open, entitled "Search the Library Catalog." You are ready to begin searching for books related to your Topic.

You may modify your search by "Keyword," "Browse," or "Exact." For our purposes, make sure "Keyword" is selected. Then, enter key words in the appropriate window and click "Search Everything." Remember to look at your Synonym List of search terms and choose what you think will be the most workable key words. By typing in the search terms "gangs" and "communities," you will find a list of five potentially relevant books kept at the Rio Hondo Library. The list of books is called your "Search Results." Each book title listed is called a "hit." In other words, your search has resulted in five "hits" for potentially relevant books. Not bad! Using other search terms from your Synonym List, you may be able to locate even more potentially relevant books.

Your "Search Results" will include the following five "hits":

# 1. 1999 Winning the war against youth gangs : a guide for teens, families, nd communities / Valerie Wiener.

# 2. 1998 The handbook of crime & punishment / edited by Michael Tonry.

# 3. 1996 Gangs in America / C. Ronald Huff, editor.

# 4. 1993 Deadly consequences / Deborah Prothrow-Stith with Michaele Weissman.

# 5. 1993 Gangs : the origins and impact of contemporary youth gangs in the United States / edited by Scott Cummings and Daniel J. Monti.

At this point, you should be careful to call these books "potentially relevant books" because you still must determine whether they are relevant to your question. Your computer THINKS they are relevant, but only your human judgement can be sure. You need to view the full listing for each book. (To view the full listing for any book, simply click the "View" icon.) Of course, only by collecting these books and skimming them would you be able to determine absolutely whether they are as relevant to the Topic as you hope.

Now conduct a Web Cat search to locate a book that relates to YOUR Research Paper Topic.

Any questions or comments for Kenn?