Infotrac is a database of citations, abstracts, and full-text articles, available free in Massachusetts to public, school, and academic libraries and for the use of individuals (with a public library card) from their home computers.
Go to the Minuteman Library Network homepage at http://www.mln.lib.ma.us
- If you are on campus, choose: In-Library Access
- If you are at home, choose: Home Access; you will need a Minuteman library card with its barcode number on the reverse side.
The following collections are available on Infotrac:
| Biography Resource Center |
General Business File |
| Business and Company Profiles |
General Reference Center Gold |
| Contemporary Literary Criticism |
Health Reference Center-Academic |
| Expanded Academic ASAP |
Professional Collection |
Subject guide search
When you are searching a general subject or concept that can be described in one or two words, choose subject search. This is likely to bring up sub-divisions which can be useful for narrowing your topic. For example, you may find thousands of articles on Abortion but only a couple dozen on Abortion – psychological aspects.
Keyword search
When you have a good idea of how you are focusing your search, do a keyword search. For example, Radioactive Waste and Nevada; Iraq and oil.
Fulltext choice [under Limit the current search]
Check the square box under the search screen labeled to articles with text. Then everything you find will include the complete article. However, if you are looking for something relatively obscure, you may want to make note of every citation (brief description of the article including author, title, journal name, date, sometimes with an abstract or summary). Then take the citation to the reference librarian who may be able to get you the article on interlibrary loan from another library.
Logical operators (or Boolean operators)
These describe the relationship between your search terms:
And specifies that both terms must occur in the search results.
For example, abortion and law; alcohol and pregnancy
Or specifies that one or another of both terms must be present
For example, youth or teenager or adolescent; dreams or daydreams
Not specifies that the word before the operator must occur but the word afterward may not occur:
For example, abortion and law not cardinal; crime not murder
Prepared by Linda Stern, Reference Librarian, 9/2004