Monday, August 6, 2007

ONLINE CATALOG, WORLDCAT, KNOVEL LIBRARY AND OTHER E-BOOKS, REPRESENTATIVE ENCYCLOPEDIAS, MY-LIBRARY

START YOUR SEARCH WITH THE UNL LIBRARIES’ ONLINE CATALOG At http://iris.unl.edu/. The online catalog can be accessed from on or off campus. You can search for books on a specific topic using a number of search strategies. There are two versions, "Encore" (use if you have a topic - the initial search is a keyword search) and the "Classic Catalog" (use if you have the title of a book or the name of an author or other specific information)

Use WorldCat to search for books on a topic in libraries throughout the world. Access from http://iris.unl.edu/ under E-Resources. Choose"W" and scroll down to WorldCat.

Electronic Books (Online)
The interface for online books will differ depending on the publisher. Often navigation is by clicking on table of contents links, which can appear in the left frame or elsewhere.

Visit the Knovel Library of Resources at http://www.knovel.com/ . Many reference-type electronic books are avalable through the Knovel Library. Knovel resources are not catalogued separately on IRIS. They are available at the above URL from any computer with a UNL IP address, or from the E-Resources link under K for Knovel. Full text access to the chemistry & chemical engineering, biochemistry, biology, and biotechnology, food science, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics & toiletries collections are available via UNL connection. Some potentially useful titles are:
  • Engineering Materials for Biomedical Applications
  • Chemistry of Nanostructured Materials
  • Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook

You can find other full-text online books [e-books] via the Libraries Catalog. From the main screen at http://iris.unl.edu/, Click on Classic Catalog, select E-Formats Search under "Catalog Search," then “e-books”. Enter a search term and submit.

The most updated version of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics is now available online. Use the online catalog or the E-Resources screen to access. Other collections of electronic books may be accessed from the "Engineering" Category on the E-Resources screen (Safari, Springer, etc.)


Representative Encyclopedias
Encyclopedia of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering 2 vol. ENGR REF R857.M3 E63 2004
Encyclopedia of Materials Science and Technology (TOC and abstracts are online) 11 vol. LOVE REF TA402 .E53 2001
Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering 23 vol. ENGR REF TK9 .W55 1999

MY LIBRARY. Log in and customize your own IRIS interface. Your personal access will then allow you to:

  • Renew Materials
  • See messages from the library
  • Manage saved searches
  • Request items
  • Review checkouts
  • See past checkouts

PERIODICAL INDEXES – HOW CAN I FIND AN ARTICLE ON A SPECIFIC TOPIC?

SEARCH FOR ARTICLES. On the http://iris.unl.edu/ Web page is a link to “E-Resources,” which can lead you to indexes to articles on a topic in journals, conference proceedings, and other sources. Browse categories of interest under “Search by Category,” for example: Engineering, Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, etc.

Listed below are SOME of the significant article indexes available through the UNL Libraries. You may access these indexes by selecting the “E-Resources” link in the online catalog. To find other article indexes browse the categories under “Search by Category”.

REMOTE ACCESS WITH YOUR NUID NUMBER. At http://iris.unl.edu/ when you click on a link to an e-resource, a logon screen will ask for your last name & NUID.

Most journal article indexes/databases have a Request via ILL (ILLiad), Additional Resources button, etc., allowing you to transfer data directly into a request. Most of the indexes below have links for full text, when available at UNL, or links to request an article, conference paper, etc. and a link to RefWorks, UNL accessible citation management software. WebBridge is the software interface that provides the “bridge” (resolver) between the database and the various access options for any given article,. WebBridge also often has a link to RefWorks and will bridge the citation over to a record in your RefWorks account.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ARTICLE INDEXES

Web of Science. (Science Citation Index). Index of science and engineering journals. Find information about journals, authors and articles that are cited by other researchers. Use the full text link “View Full Text” to link directly to the article in HTML or Pdf. Otherwise the link “Additional Resources” goes to a screen with other options. Web of Science supplies the EndNote citation manager to every licensed user; it does not support RefWorks. However, you can save selected records to field tagged, file type file, then log into RefWorks and import the file specifying ISI as the data source and Web of Science as the database. Browse to find the text file you saved to your computer and click on Open.Your records should appear in the Last Imported Folder.

GENERAL ENGINEERING ARTICLE INDEX

Compendex Web/Ei Compendex Plus. Commands the entire spectrum of engineering, in depth, with abstracts from over 2,600 international journals, conference papers, technical reports, and more back to 1884. Updated weekly. “Full-text” link is not limited to what UNL patrons have access to. Use the link: “Additional Resources” for possible online access choices. Some will take you directly to the article record with a Pdf link to the online article. Each search result set has an RSS feed link. RefWorks: Select items, then “Download”. Select "RefWorks direct import" and click on Download. The export will open RefWorks if it is not already open and automatically import the references. Your records should appear in the Last Imported Folder. See E-Resources access screen for more information.

SELECTED SPECIALIZED ENGINEERING ARTICLE INDEXES
(View additional resources under the "Engineering" Category on the E-Resources screen)

SCIFINDER SCHOLAR. Integrated, user-friendly, point-and-click access to Chemical Abstracts Service databases. Use for any information needs regarding chemicals, materials, compositions of products, etc. Buttons to the right of each citation link to the detailed record and either directly to the full text, or to options for obtaining the full text. RefWorks - to save citations from your SciFinder Scholar search, select citations, click on “Save As”, choose tagged format, name the file and locate where to save it (Must be on your C or D drive). Log into your RefWorks account, choose “Import” under “References”, specify CAS Scifinder, then select Caplus as the database. Use the "Browse" button under "Import Data from the following Text File" to specify your file location and name. Click "Import." See E-Resources access screen for more information.

INSPEC. Contains more than 4.7 million citations. Abstracts to worldwide literature of physics, electronics and electrical engineering, computing and control, and information technology. Primary coverage journal articles, conference proceedings, books, technical reports and dissertations. Use the built-in, online thesaurus to more precisely identify a research term as a designated subject heading in INSPEC and do a more precise search. From the search results screen, the link to access options is “WebBridge”. If full text is available at UNL, there will be a “Linked Full Text” or “PDF Full Text” link under the citation that links directly to the article. RefWorks: Add items to folder, click on “Folder has items”, select them again, then click “Export”. Select the “Direct Export to RefWorks button, then click “Save”.

IEEE /IEE Electronic Library (IEL), IEEE Explore. Indexes, abstracts, and full-text of transactions, journals, magazines, conference proceedings and standards of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) and IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) publications back to 1988 with select content back to 1952. There is a Full Text link under each citation. No RefWorks link at this time, but you can select items, “view selected items”, then under “Download Citations” at left select ASCI text (*.txt), download, then import to RefWorks. Select RIS Format as the data source and IEEE/IEL as the database. See E-Resources access screen for more information.

MATH SCINET MathSciNet is the searchable Web database providing access to over 55 years of Mathematical Reviews and Current Mathematical Publications Updated daily. Full Text Link is under "PDF" or "Article." RefWorks: Save citations by clicking the Clipboard link under the citation. Review your marked citations by clicking the Clipboard button at the top-left of the screen. Choose Citations (BibTeX) under "Select format:"and click "Save Clip". Using your Browser's Save As function, navigate to the local drive and directory where you want to save the file and save the file in the text (.txt) format. Log in to RefWorks. Select References/Import from the toolbar. Select BibTeX as the data source and MathSciNet as the database. Browse to find the text file you saved to your computer. Click Import. Your records should appear in the Last Imported Folder.

METADEX. Materials science database. Coverage: raw materials, refining, processing, welding, fabrication, end use, corrosion, performance, recycling and more. Materials covered: all metals, polymers, ceramics and composites. From search results screen, “Find UNL Full Text & Print” goes to options screen for obtaining article, and “Request Through ILL” goes directly to the ILLiad main screen. RefWorks: Click in box to select items, and then click on the RefWorks button.

TRANSPORT. Search interface for transportation research and economic information that combines the following databases: Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) from TRB includes 300,000 bibliographic citations, most with abstracts, of research information on all surface transportation modes, air transport, and highway safety. International Road Research Documentation (IRRD) from OECD contains 200,000 abstracts on highway research provided by OECD member countries.

SAE DIGITAL LIBRARY. Search interface for publications of the Society of Automotive Engineers, including technical reports, journal articles, standards, etc. Full text access to many articles.

BUSINESS INFORMATION ARTICLE INDEX

BUSINESS SOURCE PREMIER. Covers periodicals in the field of business and management. Many citations are linked to full text that comes with the article index subscription. Full text links to HTML or PDF. From the search results screen, the link to access options is “WebBridge”. RefWorks: Add items to folder, click on “Folder has items”, select them again, then click “Export”. Select the “Direct Export to RefWorks button, then click “Save”.




SEARCH TECHNIQUES

Truncation to Broaden Your Search
Use when there may be several forms of a word that are appropriate for the concept e.g. reduc* searches for reduce, reduction, reduces, reducing.Use a truncation symbol – check the database help screen to determine the truncation symbol to use e.g. *, #, $, ?

Phrase and Proximity Searching
Proximity Operator: Phrase Searching "mechanics of materials" (Check database help screen for treatment of stop words (such as "of").
Proximity Operator: NEAR e.g. mechanics near materials.

Boolean Searching
AND - Use “AND” between two concepts to retrieve articles that contain both concepts e.g. mechanics AND materials.
OR - Use “OR” between two words to retrieve articles that may contain one or the other words. Use OR if there are alternative words, (usually with similar meanings) to use to express a concept, e.g. computer AND (modeling OR simulation).
NOT – Use “NOT” to eliminate articles that contain a specified concept or word.

Field Searching
Fields are designated parts of the bibliographic record for an article, e.g. title, author, abstract, journal title, subject, main heading, controlled term, descriptor and you can limit a search to only retrieve articles that have the search term in a specified field of the record for the article.

Basic Tips
1. Search a variety of types of information – researchers’ Web sites, technical reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, journal articles and books, etc.
2. Use a variety of periodical indexes as appropriate for the topic and aspect of your research.
3. Formulate keywords for searching.
4. Formulate a search statement using keywords, phrases, Boolean Logic, truncation and field searching.
5. Examine the set of results and modify your search statement and keywords and phrases to obtain more/better results – FOR EACH INDEX.
6. If your search results in too many or too few and not relevant results, use techniques to:

  • Narrow (find fewer) a search or
  • Broaden (find more) a search OR
  • Make your search more precise.

Once I have a citation, how can I get the article?

To find the article, follow these steps in this order:
1. If there is a "Full Text" link from a article index record follow the link to go directly to the full text online.
2. Use the UNL online catalog or the Electronic Journal Finder (TDNet) from the library main page to see if UNL has online full text access
3. Use Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) or ROAR - Registry of Open Access Repositories (http://roar.eprints.org/) (you maybe able to locate a copy freely available online such as those archived in institutional repositories). In either case type the title or a unique phrase from the title in the search box - use quotes ("") around the title or phrase.

********If you have obtained the citation from a UNL article index such as Compendex there will be a link (called "Webridge" in some indexes, "additional Resources" in others) that will take you to a screen with the following options.************************************************

4. Getting the article if it is only available in print in a UNL Library (UNL owns the journal for the year of the article, and there is no online access). Search for the journal title in the UNL online "classic catalog" (specify "journal title in the drop down box) to obtain the call number, the holding library, and the dates held.
5. Getting the article from another UNL library or from an off-campus library – InterLibrary Loan. Use the “Interlibrary Loan” (ILLiad) service to request an item if it is not available through the UNL Libraries. ILLiad is the electronic system to request delivery of materials.

****ILLiad allows you to do status checks and renewals of materials requested through Interlibrary Loan.****

**** First-time users must create a free ILLiad account. ILLiad will also allow you to request electronic delivery of a (scanned) article that is available in the print collection of another UNL library (4, above).****

******Questions about ILLiad and your requests?******Interlibrary Loan is staffed 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (Central Time) Monday-FridayEmail: ill1@unlnotes.unl.edu 402-472-2522 (phone) 402-472-5131 (fax)

HOW TO PERFORM AN EXHAUSTIVE SEARCH ON A TOPIC

What should I do to make sure I have performed an exhaustive search for publications on a topic?
Include, but not limited to (depending on the subject area):
1. Search WorldCat
2. Search all appropriate article indexes to which UNL patrons have access
3. Perform the search on multiple article indexes using MultiSearch (for UNL users). Under E-Resources on the Library Home Page, click on "M", then follow the link listed as “Multi-Search (for UNL students, faculty, staff),” you will be able to search in multiple article indexes at one time. All pertinent article indexes will not be covered in Multi-Search and the search interface is very basic. Therefore the results cannot be considered to be a comprehensive set. However preliminary use of Multi-Search will give you an idea of what article indexes will give you results for your search topic (what databases to search more intensely).
4. Search for conference proceedings - PapersFirst - Indexes articles in conference proceedings in all fields, including engineering and the sciences.
5. Search for dissertations – Dissertation Abstracts. Indexes doctoral dissertations and some theses in all fields. Same interface for obtaining the item and exporting to RefWorks as in PapersFirst.
6. Search Institutional Repositories (The UNL institutional repository is called “Digital Commons”. It highlights working papers, journal articles, dissertations, and theses of UNL affiliates.) - Use ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories) http://roar.eprints.org/. Choose "Content Search". Use OAISTER http://www.oaister.org/ to take advantage of a different searching mechanism that could potentially uncover more sources (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting).
7. Do a Google (choose Advanced Search). or Google Scholar search (choose Advanced Scholar Search for phrase searching - or use quotes around key phrases in the title.)
8. Search patents at http://www.uspto.gov/, http://ep.espacenet.com/, Google Patents. (Refer to Patent Searching link on this blog.)
9. Search U.S. Government Web sites (EPA, DOD, DOE, DOT, etc. AND the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)'s Public Scientific & Technical Information Network (STINET) at http://stinet.dtic.mil/ and the National Transportation Library (http://ntl.bts.gov/). Use links from UNL gov docs page http://www.unl.edu/libr/govdocs/
10. Search Nebraska State links http://www.nebraska.gov/dynamicindex.html (e.g. NE Dept. of Roads http://www.dor.state.ne.us/), search Nebraska State Government Publications online at http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/docs/pilot/pilot.html and Lancaster County links http://interlinc.ci.lincoln.ne.us/.
11. E-prints are considered part of the grey (usually cannot be found using traditional indexes) literature. They are "rough drafts" of articles that will be submitted to a journal for publication. They can be found on the Internet, through servers that are specially set-up to accommodate authors in certain fields. For example, high-energy physics (SPIRES - Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System). Search e-print/preprint servers such as ArXiv - http://arxiv.org/ - which covers physics, mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology. Use the advanced search and read the hints.
See Directory of Preprint servers - http://www.library.uow.edu.au/eresources/UOW026409.html.
12. Search open access content Public Library of Science (PLoS), BioMed Central (BMC)
13. Use Citeseer http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ Scientific Literature Digital Library and Search Engine that focuses primarily on the literature in computer and information science.
14. Follow citations (Web of Science, Google Scholar, Citeseer) of works of interest.
15. Set up RSS feeds or email alerts to maintain currency as new articles are published.

PATENT SEARCHING

SEARCH THE PATENT LITERATURE at http://www.uspto.gov/ for United States patents, and http://ep.espacenet.com/ to search European, Japanese, and Worldwide Patents. Use the World Intellectual Property Organization (http://www.wipo.org) PATENTSCOPE interface at http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/ to search international patent applications. UNL Engineering Library is a United States Patent And Trademark Depository Library and the Engineering Librarian (Virginia Baldwin) can provide patent searching assistance. The UNL Engineering Library also has access to West - the search interface used by USPTO patent examiners.

Among reasons to do patent searching are the following:
(1) To find information about an area that is a candidate for a utility (based on usefulness) patent. Often there is an early insight into groundbreaking accomplishments in an area that are not published elsewhere.
(2) You have an idea and you want to see if there is a patent out there that is related to your idea. You will want to do a "prior art" search (search for granted patents in the same area). This search can only be considered a complete search if you are searching for all patents in the class(es)/subclass(es) related to your idea.The United States Patent and Trademark Office Web site <http://www.uspto.gov/> only provides keyword searching for patents back to 1976. Google Patents provides an OCR word search of some earlier U.S. patents and easily retrieves patent images.

Keyword searching may be appropriate as a method for locating information (1, above) and may assist the searcher in finding a class/subclass to search.

COPYRIGHT, CITATIONS, FAIR USE

How to Secure Permission to Use Copyrighted Works http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/permsec.htm
How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.html
Fair Use http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html and http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?page_id=645&PARENT_ID=393&bhcp=1
From the University of Minnesota Copyright Information and Education Web site:Four Factors of Fair Use: <Factor">http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/checklist.phtml>Factor
#1: Purpose and character of the useFactor
#2: The nature of the copyrighted workFactor
#3: Amount and substantiality of the portion usedFactor
#4: Effect on the potential market for or value of the work

Proper citation of an Internet source: APA Style (from the 5th edition, 2001 of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association) From the APA Web site Electronic References section http://www.apastyle.org/elecsource.html#71examples are given for proper citation of:
1. Internet articles based on a print source
2. Article in an Internet-only journal
3. Article in an Internet-only newsletter
4. Stand-alone document, no author identified, no date
5. Document available on university program or department Web site
6. Electronic copy of a journal article, three to five authors, retrieved from database

If you use screen shots from a .gov Web site, you must cite them!Check out this important Copyright Information from the Virginia Tech University "ETD" (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) Web site: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/crightflier.pdf. Contains advice about signing agreements with publishers and about using someone else's copyrighted works in your dissertation or thesis.