Searching the Criminal Justice Abstracts Database at UST: Guide to Silverplatter v. 5.0

Features:

• Criminal Justice Abstracts covers journal articles, books, and reports from government and nongovernmental agencies in the criminal justice fields.
• Although there is no online thesaurus for Criminal Justice Abstracts, as there is for most other Silverplatter databases, a list of subject terms can be found by clicking on "Database Guide" on the right hand corner of the screen. Next, choose "Suggested Search Terms" from the list in the left column of the screen. This will bring up suggested terms grouped in alphabetical ranges. 
• Searching can be done on other Silverplatter databases at the same time that Criminal Justice Abstracts is being searched.  However subject searching cannot be done when searching multiple databases.
• Finding articles by Classification:  Criminal Justice Abstracts can be searched by six classifications which group the abstracts by subject.  To find articles by Classification, type <cl=[code]> in the Search window as a "Words Anywhere" search and combine results with your subject search terms.  The codes are as follows:
  • C = Crime, the Offender, and the Victim
  • J = Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
  • P = Police
  • CT = Courts and the Legal Process
  • CR = Adult Corrections
  • CP = Crime Prevention and Control Strategies

  More information on Classification Codes can be found by choosing the Database Guide and bringing up the information under the Classifications heading. 

Accessing Criminal Justice Abstracts: 

This database is available to the UST community anywhere on campus from our
library web page, located at http://www.stthomas.edu/libraries. Simply click on "Find Articles and More", then look under Social Sciences for "Law and Criminal Justice"  in the list of subjects. When the list of recommended databases comes up, Criminal Justice Abstracts should be second on the list. 

It's also available to UST students, faculty and staff from off-campus.  When you click on the database name, a window will open asking for your UST username and password.  Type those in and the database will be accessible.

This version of SilverPlatter is different from prior versions. You will be working with top and bottom frames. You may use the browser front and back navigation buttons to move through pages. 

Selecting Criminal Justice Abstracts from the SilverPlatter family:
From the main SilverPlatter menu, click in the Criminal Justice Abs. box to select the database. Click on the yellow button "Start Searching" to begin to search. 

Searching Criminal Justice Abstracts:

The Search Screen:




The top frame of the search page has several tabs which can be clicked for different commands: Search (basic level), Advanced (easier to combine terms), Index, and Search History. Note that the Thesaurus button is grayed out. A thesaurus is not available in this database. That means it will be important to think of alternate terms for your subject(s) and to use the suggested subject terms. See the note above for accessing a list of Suggested Search Terms.

Examples of Alternative Terminology:
ADDICTION: Alcohol Abuse or Alcohol Addiction or Drug Addiction or Drug Abuse
ADOLESCENTS: Children or Juvenile Offenders or Runaways or Status Offenders
COMMUNITY POLICING: Community Policing or Community Oriented Policing 

If you wish to refine your search by going back and adding another term, you may do so by  following the procedure of typing the term in the search box and hitting the yellow search button. To combine terms together into a single search, click on the "Search History" tab on the top of the page. You will then get a list of each search you have executed. Simply click in the boxes in front of the searches you wish to include as in the example below:

Once you have selected the terms to combine in the search by checking the appropriate boxes, click on the appropriate button to complete your search. Your choice between the "and" and the "or" button depends on your choice of boolean operator. Using the "or" button will expand your search and should be used when looking for terms which are similar (Example:  Alcohol Abuse or Alcohol Addiction or Drug Addiction or Drug Abuse). Use the "and" button to narrow your search when you want all terms included in the article (Example:  Drug Abuse and Adolescents).  (Click on this link for more info on boolean operators.) Once the search is completed, a click on the Display icon will bring up the individual records. 

The records will display in a frame at the bottom of the screen.  If the frame is too small for comfortable viewing, you can enlarge it by clicking and dragging on the bar that separates this frame from the blue 'search' frame.  You will need to shrink it back down to return to searching.

Printing/Sending Email/Saving to a Disk:

To mark specific records for printing, click on the box at the beginning of a record so that a Ö appears. When you have finished looking through the list of references, click on one of the following icons   to print, save to disc, or email records. In Print and Save to Disc,  the next screen has a default of "Marked Records."  In most cases, this is what you will want.  If you choose to print the records, click on the yellow 'print' button in your open window, not the browsers 'print' button.  In E-mail,  check that it is set for marked records ( it doesn't always default to that) Also, you must put something in the 'from' field (any letter will work), then put your address in the 'to' field.  

To print from Internet Explorer on a Macintosh:
1. Select the records you want to print by checking boxes in front of each record number.
2. Display these records by changing the left pull-down menu option.
3. Click on the print icon (center right of screen).
4. Click the "preview" button, not the "print" button.
5. Click the browser's "print" button.

Getting Help:

• Consult the WebSPIRS Search Hints on the middle of the first page in the database. You can also click on the 'Database Guide' or 'Help' links in the top right corner of the window.
• Ask a reference librarian in person, or virtually by clicking on one of the e-mail addresses below. 
• Contact the Tech Help Desk at 651 962-6230 for off-campus connectivity issues related to usernames and passwords. 

Revised 9/02 JO 10/04 dn

Comments, Questions, or requests for Reference Assistance to:

Jan Orf : jmorf@stthomas.edu, 117 O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library, (651)962-5007 

Maura Smyth/ Mail #MOH206 / Opus Hall/ Minneapolis/ MN / 55403 
mtsmyth@stthomas.edu