Limit Yourself

Post written by Danny Dotson, Associate Professor, Mathematical Sciences Librarian & Science Education Specialist, and head of the Orton Memorial Library of Geology & the Gardner Family Map Room at The Ohio State University

 

One of my favorite things to do when visiting a course is to talk about the value of the limit options in library search tools. I go into this knowing that some will likely not make use of some of these and go through the habit learned from years of using Google of doing a more manual sift through of content. I’ve even had a student in my own credit course say they preferred the manual sift after being introduced to these advanced features. Until they were made to use them and then indicated they realize how much work they made for themselves by not using these options.

I try to demonstrate the value by showing how much less you have to look at. For example:

Why limits?

Maybe you don’t read another language….

Maybe you don’t want to get up from your computer…

Maybe you only want to focus on recent content…

Or maybe you want all of these….

Of course, in any case, there may still be items not relevant. Relevant items may be removed because they don’t fit the imposed extra criteria. But it means less (sometimes far less) items to examine for relevance.

 

So make your life easier – limit yourself.

 

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