The COS Library does not subscribe to a database that provides full-text articles of the Visalia Times Delta or other Tulare County Newspapers; however, Tulare County Library does have access to a Newsbank database containing the Visalia Times Delta. You must have a county library card to access this database.
The Visalia Times Delta does have an online archive search at its web site; however, there are restrictions.
The paper for the city of Tulare is the Tulare Advance-Register, which is not indexed.

The newspapers to which the Library subscribes are located in the Periodicals Department on the library's first floor. The  local/California  subscriptions along with the retention schedule are as follows:

• The Fresno Bee - Current 2 months

• Hanford Sentinel - Current 2 months

• Los Angeles Times  -  current 2 months (1980 - Jan.15, 1994 microfilm)

• San Francisco Chronicle - Current 2 months

• Tulare Advance Register - Current 2 months

• Valley Voice -20001+

• Visalia Times Delta - Current 6 months

Searching with Key Words and Boolean Operators:

When you type words into the search box, the computer will look in the databases for those words and bring back all the records/entries that contain the words you requested (not necessarily the topic or subject matter). In keyword searching, you need to use  the most important words that describe your topic.

Example 1:   What crimes are committed by teens in the San Joaquin Valley?

                      Key words:    crimes    teens    San Joaquin Valley

Example 2:   What is the job growth outlook for the San Joaquin Valley?

                     Key words:    job growth outlook    San Joaquin Valley

Phrase Searching
Words that need to be searched together in a specific order are usually enclosed in quotation marks.

Examples:    "San Joaquin Valley"    "Central Valley"

Truncation
Truncation lets you find all forms of the root word. The symbol most often used is an *.

Example:  educat*  will find educate; education; educating; educated

Boolean Operators

            Keyword searching uses Boolean Operators to link the search terms together. The Boolean operator you will use most often is AND.

The Boolean Operator AND means that the terms connected by it must be in the search results.  In Example 1  the keywords were crimes and teens and San Joaquin Valley,  so my search query would be  crime* and teen* and "San Joaquin Valley"
This would ensure that all those terms would have to be in the record or the computer would not retrieve it.

OR is another Boolean Operator. It is used when you have two words that mean the same thing or are very similar in meaning, and you want to find all the articles regardless of which term is used.

Examples:    San Joaquin Valley OR Central Valley
                      teen OR youth
When an OR search is combined with an AND search the OR search must be placed in parentheses ( ). This separates the searches for the computer. This search technique is called nesting.

Examples:  crimes and (teen OR youth) and (San Joaquin Valley OR Central Valley)

                   "Job growth" and (outlook OR forecast)

Periodical Indexes for Broader/National Issues:

• CQ Researcher - Your complete source on the most current and controversial issues of the day with complete summaries, all the pros and cons, bibliographies and more. (Annual Cost $523)
• Infotrac - Infotrac provides articles from more than 500 scholarly, trade and general-interest publications, as well as references for The New York Times. The databases integrate core titles in every major academic concentration; area  and issue-specific journals; academic journals with application in the professions; and publications with national news coverage and commentary.  The time period it covers is current year to date + the previous 3 years. The optional backfile extends coverage as far back as 1980.  (Annual Cost $9,732)
• SIRS (Social Issues Research Series) - SIRS contains all full-text articles from a variety of newspaper and magazines covering current social issues.  (Annual Cost $1440)
• Lexis/Nexis - LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic Universe provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, medical and reference information. (Annual Cost $5,518) Not available off campus!

Web Sites for Local Issues:

The Great Valley Center - This organization's mission is to support the economic, social and environmental well-being of California's Great Central Valley. This is a good place to start for on overview as well as specific information on agriculture, arts & culture, civic behavior, education, employment, healthcare, land use, population characteristics, resources & the environment, technology and youth development.  There are a couple of ways to obtain information from this web site :

1. To focus on our area type "Tulare County" or a city name such as Visalia in their search engine box.

2. Click on Publications on the left hand menu then choose a specific subject area such as youth development.

Their publications and many others listed on this page are available in .PDF format only and requires an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print their documents.  You can download the software for free at: http://adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. All COS Library computers already have this software loaded.

California Research Bureau (CRB)  Reports summarize statistics for the eight counties of the San Joaquin Valley. Topics include the use of the land, population and its characteristics, employment, and industry. Statistics are drawn from public sources, primarily federal and state, and displayed in charts for the region as a whole and for each of the counties in the region. CRB Reports can be found at:  http://www.library.ca.gov/html/statseg2a.cfm

Public Policy Institute of California Publications (.pdf format)

• Central Valley at a Crossroads:  Migration and its implications

• Special Survey of the Central Valley

• Urban Development Futures in the San Joaquin Valley

• How Will Urbanization Change the San Joaquin Valley?

Crime

• High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area - Central Valley

• Tulare County District Attorney

Statistics

• Criminal Justice Statistics - this database is maintained by the California Attorney General's Office.  There are many ways to search this database.  One way is by County such as "Tulare County".

• Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

• Visalia Police Department - Crime Statistics

Education

• School Indicators for Youth in California's Central Valley
• Tulare County Office of Education
• Visalia Unified School District

Employment/Labor Force

• Rural Migration News
• Tulare County Economic Development Corporation
• Tulare County Employment Connection
• Tulare County Workforce Investment Board
• California  Labor & Workforce  Development Agency

Cities and County Government

• City of Dinuba
• City of Exeter
• City of Hanford
• City of Lindsay
• City of Porterville
• City of Springville
• City of Tulare
  • Tulare Parks and Community Services
• City of Visalia
  • Visalia Police Department
• City of Woodlake
• County of Tulare - Information & Resources
• TCAG - Tulare County Association of Governments

Newspapers

• Valley Voice Newspaper
• Visalia Times-Delta

Statistics and Census

• CA Statistical Abstract 2004 (.PDF)
• Census by Individual Cities and Unincorporated Communities in Tulare County (.PDF)

• Criminal Justice Statistics for California

• San Joaquin Valley:  Selected Statistics on Population, Economy and the Environment, May 2002 (.PDF)
• A Statistical Tour of California's Great Central Valley - August, 1997
• State Health Facts

The above web sources are from the web page:

Fly, Connie. Library Guide-Tulare County. 2006 College of the Sequoias Library. 28 Sept 2006        
        <http://cos.edu/library/tularecounty.htm>

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This page was created March 2007 This page was last updated: 04/25/2008
For questions and comments, please mail to:  ginah@cos.edu