finding information for research: beyond google! nigel morgan & jane sparks november 24 th 2009
TRANSCRIPT
Finding Information for Research:
Beyond Google!
Nigel Morgan & Jane Sparks
November 24th 2009
Session outcomesAt the end of the session you should be able to:
Identify useful information resources for your subject
Analyse your topic to produce keywords Techniques for effective searching Use a range of scholarly information
sources to find journal articles and book chapters on your subject
Use advanced database features including alerts and citation trails
Specialist search tools for scientists
RefSeek – http://www.refseek.com/
8 useful science search engines:- Scirus www.scirus.com/- Science.gov www.science.gov- ScienceResearch.com www.scienceresearch.com
/- Scitation scitation.aip.org/- WorldWideScience.org worldwidescience.org/- Science Accelerator scienceaccelerator.gov/- TechXtra www.techxtra.ac.uk
Planning your search
Identify the key concepts in your topic
Which words describe these concepts? Identify synonyms Identify alternative spellings
Try different combinations of keywords
Consider synonyms / related terms
Environmental impact of global
warming on the UK climate
EnvironmentalEnvironment
+impactseffects
solutions
global warmingclimate changeglobal change climatic changegreenhouse effect thermal stressatmospheric composition
UKUnited Kingdom
Great Britain+ +
Environmental impact of global warming on UK
climate
SOLUTIONS
waste reduction
Kyoto protocol
energy saving
CONSEQUENCES
carbon trading
observation
empirical data
EVIDENCE
CAUSES
fossil fuelsspecies extinction
health threatsfood scarcity
coastal erosion
increased land usegreenhouse
gases
Exercise 1:
Planning your Search
Accessing resources
Links to Voyager / ELSLinks to databasesOff campus links
Improving your searches: some basic tricks!
AND Global warming AND floods
OR Global warming OR climate change (Global warming OR climate change)
AND floodsFlood* = flood, floods, flooding,
floodedglobali?ation = globalisation,
globalization
Think of all permutations!
Tumor or TumourAlzheimer or Alzheimer’s Hospitalisation or hospitalizationCephalonia or KefaloniaCreutzfeldt-Jacob Disease or CJD
Can you think of any other examples?
Are you aware of Scopus?
Nearly 30 million records 250 million quality web
sources Broad coverage of sciences Almost 20,000 journals Abstracts go back to 1966 Available via MWE Useful alerts feature
Exercises 2 & 3
MWE and Scopus
Research tip: citation searching
Q: What is citation searching?
A: Looking forward in time to discover articles which have cited a particular work
Schreider S.Y. et al. 2000 Climate change impacts on urban flooding.
Climatic Change 47 (1-2) pp. 91-115.
Alerts
Information is tailored to your needs.Information is sent directly to your
mailbox, or RSS feed reader wherever you are in the world
Delays in receiving information about the latest publications are minimised.
You don’t have to re-run the same old searches every week.
Exercise 4:
Multi-disciplinary databases- advanced
features(Citation trails & Alerts)
Subject Specific Services
BIOSIS PreviewsPubMed
ScienceDirectEmbase
All accessible via MWE
Finding the full text
Schreider, S.Y. et al. 2000 Climate change impacts on urban flooding. Climatic Change 47 (1-2) pp. 91-115.
If you are not given a link via a database check:
Voyager Electronic Journals portal
Exercises 5 & 6: Subject specific
databases and finding the full text
More sources of scholarly information
Books – what’s available? COPAC British Library Integrated Catalogue Library of Congress catalogue (US) WorldCat
Theses Index to Theses (UK)
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - via Web of Knowledge
Exercise 7:
Other sources of scholarly information
Interlibrary Loans
Journals & Conferences Pink form
Books, Theses, Reports Blue form
Authorisation: Lecturer’s signature
£6.90 per photocopy / £10.20 per loan
Copyright declaration: Your signature
Keeping up-to-date
Latest journal articles on your topic
The table of contents of your favourite journal before the printed version arrives
Exercise 8:
Zetoc alerts
RSS feeds
RSS feeds Regular updates of new content added
to web sites Alternative to email alerts now offered
by many academic-related sites including publishers and databases
Need an RSS feed reader – available within the MWE portal
Mailing lists & blogsMailing lists
Submit messages to list members Receive messages posted to list Search the archives of previous messages
Use: www.jiscmail.ac.ukBlogs
Postings to a web-site in chronological order
Vary in quality, but some can be useful Good blogs updated regularly
Find blogs via http://blogsearch.google.com
And finally…
Can you tell us what you have found most useful during the
session?
