Special Education: Search for Sources

• ERIC IS PRIMARILY A CITATION DATABASE. YOU OFTEN WILL NOT GET FULL-TEXT ARTICLES.  A citation  source contains enough information to point you towards an item.  In order to obtain the full article, you would need to find who owns the book or the journal. You would do this by using the Molloy Online Public Access Catalog for books; the Molloy Periodicals Listing for journal titles; or by using First Search WorldCat, or the Union List of Serials. Click on libraries that own titles to find out where the article or book can be obtained.

•   ERIC IS DESIGNED AND MAINTAINED BY THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER -- NOT MOLLOY UNIVERSITY. It is a national clearinghouse/monopoly for about 95-98% of all educational articles published. Questions and comments about ERIC should be addressed to ERIC.

•   ERIC is divided into two separate indexes:

RIE stands for Resources in Education. These are technical reports, conference papers, dissertations, lesson plans, and bibliographies.  If you see “ED” followed by a number, you need to consult the RIE microfilm/fiche OR the EDRS database.

CIJE (Current Index to Journals in Education) cites journal articles for about 50 key educational publications.  If you see “EJ” followed by a number, you need to consult the CIJE microfilm/fiche or print journal holdings for the full-text article.

•   ERIC uses what is called a controlled vocabulary: to optimally search, you need to understand the terms the database understands.  Try using synonyms—for example, is it teaching methods, teaching styles or teaching strategies?   Use the print indexes, or the online thesaurus to determine which terminology is correct.  Keyword searching will either yield too many results, or inaccurate results.

•   Databases do not search like AskJeeves: you need to break your search string down into a few key components, and string the components together using “and”, “not”, “or”.

•  Because ERIC is a citation source, students have to investigate where to get the full text. You can use our periodical listings, interlibrary loan system,  or Union List of Serials to acquire the full text articles. Some local colleges listed as having extensive ERIC resource collections (microfilm and print) are: Adelphi, Brooklyn Public Library, Fordham, Hofstra, L.I.U., New York Public Library system, Queens, St. John’s