ENE 645, Professor Nancy Kinner
Library Information Session, 13 April 2004
Provided by Emily Poworoznek, Associate Professor and Engineering & Physical Sciences Librarian
ENE 645 Library Information Session: Outline and Step-by-step
How to use this page: follow outline links to see detailed information.
I. Where does your information come from (and why does it matter)?
A. UNPUBLISHED
B. PUBLISHED
Formal (through a publisher) or informal
1. Informally published material? Need to evaluate carefully. Some help in evaluating sources and searches.
2. Formally published material -- undergoes a process to ensure authority.
a) Primary sources --original material
Examples: research articles in journals or conference proceedings; research reports (government or corporate research); investigative reporting; original books or treatises
b) Secondary sources) -- the content is brought together from a number of primary sources and often other secondary sources.
Examples: textbooks, encyclopedias, review articles in journals, newspaper stories based on previous reports
c) What is peer review?
C. Cite your sources
1. What do I have to cite?
2. How do I cite it?
II. Sources for environmental engineering literature searches -- save time by using trusted, authoritative sources
A. For basic information, use published books
B. For current and specialized information, use indexes to find journal articles on your topic. Examples of indexes include:
1. Ei Compendex
2. Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management (ESPM)
3. SciFinder Scholar
4. Web of Science
C. Sample searches on Ei Compendex and ESPM
These indexes use Boolean searching terms (see tip sheets). Here are some examples of searches:
If I need recent information on using bio-membranes to treat wastewater, I could phrase my searches this way (for Ei Compendex and ESPM, the Boolean terms do not need to be capitalized)
(biomembrane* OR bio-membrane*) AND (wastewater or waste-water)
I can limit the search to certain publication years if needed. It's a good idea to try different synonyms (you can use OR to search them at one time, or do different searches).
D. Getting the material
1. Using the catalog
- Author searches
- Title searches
- Author/title
- Keyword
- Subject
2. Understanding Catalog records
a) Book (by subject)
b) Government Document
c) Book (by title)
d) Journal (by title)
e) Keyword searching for a title
3. If you don't find what you seek, check with Library staff (call, email, come in). We will double-check for you. If we don't have the material at the UNH Library, you may obtain it through the Library's InterLibrary Loan (ILL) or the BLC Virtual Catalog.
a) Journal article copy: ILL
b) Borrowing a book: ILL or VCat
You don't have to check with library staff before using ILL or the Virtual Catalog, but it can save time!
III. Review -- steps to sources
Outline with detail
I. Where does your information come from (and why does it matter)?
A. UNPUBLISHED sources: course lecture notes, interviews, letters, expert testimony, friends and neighbors
B. PUBLISHED sources:
Formal (through a publisher) or informal (self-published, like a blog or a person's Web site)
1. Informally published material? Need to evaluate carefully.
a)"Evaluating Web Sites for Quality" (http://www.reference.unh.edu/guides/eval.html)
b) Greg Notess' Search Engine Showdown summarizes info on major Internet search engines
(http://www.searchengineshowdown.com)
2. Formally published material -- undergoes a process to ensure authority. Organization, permanence, and ease of citation are other qualities. Some is peer-reviewed.
a) Primary sources -- original material is presented in written or another form; examples are journal articles with published experimental results or new theories, novel applications of model, patents for inventions
Examples: research articles in journals or conference proceedings; research reports (government or corporate research); investigative reporting; original books or treatises
b) Secondary sources) -- the content is brought together from a number of primary sources and often other secondary sources.
Examples: textbooks, encyclopedias, review articles in journals, newspaper stories based on previous reports
c) What is peer review? Not the same as peer pressure -- it's more like having a jury of your peers.
When a journal article is "peer-reviewed" it means that professionals -- engineers or scientists in the same field -- have read the article before publication. Reviewers may recommend changes or additions, as well as making a recommendation as to whether the article should be accepted for publication or rejected. Peer reviewers are usually anonymous and volunteer to review articles as a service to the profession-- they are not compensated for this work.
Examples: Research journal articles are usually peer-reviewed (example: Water Environment & Technology); conference proceedings may be; reports rarely are, although a competitive proposal process using peer review is often used to select the project for funding; popular and trade magazines usually are not or may have a mix (ENR, Time).
C. Cite your sources
1. What do I have to cite?
All sources of information that you use in large part, paraphrase, or quote, whether published or unpublished.
2. How do I cite it?
Your instructor may prefer a specific style of citation. The Library also has many guides to citing sources, including Kate Turabian's well-known Manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations and Xia Li's Electronic Styles.
II. Resources for environmental engineering literature searches -- save time by using trusted, authoritative sources
A. For basic information, use published books, such as those recommended by your instructor (EPA manuals, etc., and other published reference sources such as standards and handbooks).
B. For current and specialized information, use indexes to find journal articles on your topic. Examples include:
1. Ei Compendex -- all areas of engineering, 1980-present, indexes
mainly journal articles and conference proceedings. In print this goes back to the late 19th century (and we have it all...).
"Compendex" stands for COMPuterized ENgineering inDEX and Ei is Engineering Information, the company that produces it.
2. Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management (ESPM)
-- a suite of databases covering aquatic and terrestrial research, time period and type of publication covered varies by index
3. SciFinder Scholar -- essential resource for searching the pure and applied chemical literature, 1907-present, indexes journal and conference articles, patents, reports, and more (based on Chemical Abstracts). special software for this is loaded on public workstations at all UNH Library sites and on many CIS cluster computers.
4. Web of Science -- science coverage 1977-present
WoS offers citation searching (you can look up an article by its citation to see what later articles have cited it); the general index covers journals only; journals are selected for having the highest citation rates in their fields.
C. Sample searches on Ei Compendex and ESPM
These indexes use Boolean searching terms (see tip sheet). Here are some examples of searches:
If you need recent information on using bio-membranes to treat wastewater, you can phrase your searches this way (for Ei Compendex and ESPM, the Boolean terms do not need to be capitalized)
(biomembrane* OR bio-membrane*) AND (wastewater or waste-water)
You can limit the search to certain publication years if needed. It's a good idea to try different synonyms (you can use OR to search them at one time, or do this in separate searches).
D. Getting the material
1. Using the catalog
In the sample searches above, you saw how to go from the index to the Library catalog directly. However, lots of times, you need to type in your own search on the Library's catalog.
- Author searches: Last name, firstname (try just the first initial)
- Title searches: Omit "The," "A" or "An" at the start of a title. Case doesn't matter in any of these searches.
- Author/title: Try just the author's last name with any uncommon word from the title (Example: Author: Metcalf, Title: Treatment)
- Keyword: Use the Boolean terms (and, or) to connect your keywords, or just type the words in to search them as a phrase "wastewater treatment" Keyword searches are helpful for topic searching when you aren't sure of which subject headings are appropriate. Keyword searches are also great for finding conference proceedings. The keyword search checks book and journal titles, names of authors if they are organizations or companies, conference names, subject headings, and notes such as contents.
- Subject: The Library uses Library-of-Congress subject headings. These may be proper names, such as the name of a country (Ghana), person (Shakespeare), river (Cocheco), company (Microsoft), etc., or topics, such as "Sewage disposal plants" or "Water -- Purification." Each library has a book of subject headings, or you can look at the subject headings in the catalog records for books similar to what you would like to find.
2. Understanding Catalog records
a) search for the subject "Water Purification" and limit to 1995- (use light blue "limit" button on screen after your initial search). The second title is Basic Water Treatment. Note the location, call number, and status. This is a regular book in the Engineering/Math Library's collection. The call number is TD, typical for Environmental Engineering.
b) Then, do the same search, without the date limit. Look at the second record, for Alternative water disinfection... this is a U.S. government document. The UNH Library is a federal government depository, and has librarians on staff who specialize in government documents and GIS. The Gov't Docs Desk is on the main floor of Dimond (3rd floor), just past the Reference Desk. There is a major map collection in the Map Room on that floor. Most of the actual docs are shelved on Level 1, organized by a special call number system.
c) Search by title for: standard methods
Select the record for:
Standard Methods For The Examination Of Water And Wastewater -- note the summary of holdings, with the list of volumes below (click for more), locations, call numbers with years, and the status (Available or Due with Date)
d) Journal example. Search by title for: Water Environment & Technology
(always search by the journal's title in the catalog, not the article title).
Click on the first title on the list. You can see a summary of the library holdings; the volumes are listed below (click on gray bar to see all volumes listed). Note the previous and later titles of this journal, towards the end of the record. Click on the previous title, Journal (Water Pollution Control Federation) -- you will see that this is kept in Dimond. Journals at Dimond Library are shelved by call number on Level Two. Journals in the branch libraries are shelved alphabetically by title.
Try another journal title search: Journal of Environmental Engineering. (click here to run this search automatically.) The first and fourth entries on the list are for the ASCE journal; the other two are for a journal published by the National Research Council Canada.
Click on the first entry -- this gives us three versions: a micro version, the printed version, and an online version of the journal. Click on the middle choice -- the printed version. The back volumes of this journal are in Storage (use the light blue "Request" button on the screen to request materials from Storage, as well as materials that are checked out. The "online version" of the journal, in this case, is a set of articles provided by EbscoHost, a third-party vendor under license from ASCE. This is not the ASCE's original online journal. You can use these "clippings," but be careful; look for page image versions. So-called "full text" versions often lack the illustrations, including diagrams, figures and sometimes, charts or tables. You must give the full journal citation, and note the URL that you used to access it and the name of the file, for example: Brown, Amy. "Bioremediation of sulfuric acid from papermill waste." Journal of Environmentally Sound Engineering 5 (May 2003): 11-18. Available from Academic Search Premier . Accessed April 1, 2004.
e) Keyword searching for a title:
a common example for ENE is the Means catalogs. Everyone uses them; no one remembers the exact titles! Search by keyword: Means -- then limit by location to "Engr/Math Library" in either the first step or as a second step in your search (how you do this depends on whether you use the Keyword search from the UNH Library home page or the Advanced Keyword search from the UNH Library catalog page, which allows you to set your limits at the start of the search.
3. If you don't find what you seek, you can check with Library staff (call, email, come in). We will double-check for you. If we don't have the material at the UNH Library, you may obtain it through the Library's InterLibrary Loan (ILL) or the BLC Virtual Catalog.
a) To request a photocopy of a journal article or conference article, create an account and fill out the online form (keep track of your userid and password!). Most material arrives in two weeks, but it may take up to six weeks, so please plan in advance. Undergraduates may make 6 ILL requests per week.
b) If you need a whole book, you may use the Virtual Catalog or ILL.
Virtual Catalog requests usually arrive in 4-5 days, and are held for pick-up at Dimond Library's Loan Desk. You can use the Virtual Catalog to request an item that the UNH Library owns that happens to be checked out when you need it, or you can request them back from the person who has the item out (this usually takes a bit longer, as we give our users a minimum of 10 days to bring the item in).
You don't have to check with library staff before using ILL or the Virtual Catalog, but it can save time!
III. Review -- steps to sources
A. Use trusted, authoritative sources for professional information.
B. Consider whether primary or secondary information is needed, and how current it should be.
C. Use subject-specialized indexes to search for journal and conference literature.
D. Check whether the Library owns the sources, using the catalog.
E. If not owned, use ILL or Virtual Catalog to make your request.
F. Contact Engineering/Math Library staff at any point in this process, when you have a question.
Comments or questions to Emily Poworoznek, UNH Engineering and Physical Sciences Librarian (please modify with @ symbol and no parentheses): el(at)cisunix.unh.edu
Created April 2004.