CME Graduate Seminar Info Sheet (CHE 870 and METL 871)
Library and Information Resources
Dorothy Byers, Head Engineering Library, x63352
April 26, 2007
Important basics:
Defining a topic:
- Look at theses at UC, in OhioLINK (keyword search and limit material type to thesis)
- Look at books, reviews, encyclopedias and handbooks to get background information
- Check out faculty or researchers whose names you know and see what they are doing in databases and web sites
- Use the funnel approach
- name a broad area
name a subarea name a specific topic within the subarea
- what aspect to look at: theory, application, design, material, construction process, function, use data
- what are your independent variables? your dependent variables.
Search tips:
- For author searching, beware varying forms of name.
- In Science Citation Index, only initials are used, e.g. Angelopoulos, A . Try their new Author Finder!
- Within a database, browse author name index if not sure of the form, or to pull up variants of same author's name and even misspellings!
- There can be many researchers with the same name. Verify person by topic of research and location, keeping in mind where they were working at the time an article was written.
- For subject searching, start with keyword
- Know how to use truncation, wild cards, and proximity operators in the database
- Combine synonyms (OR words together) to create a set of terms for a concept
- Combine sets with AND to limit search to the intersection
- Use search history to combine search statements
- Examine records in search results to see what subjects have been assigned (if any) to the record. These subjects may be used to expand to all records on the same subject.
- Expand to related articles, if opportunity exists (usually based on common references)
- Use citing features, if any
- To narrow your results
- use advanced searching capability
- use " " or ( ) to identify a phrase unless database automatically does it
- use limit features such as date, material type (journals only, conferences only, patents only, theses only, online only), or treatment (theoretical, applied, historical, scholarly, review, etc)
- search your topic in title only (this works great in internet searches)
Where to look (see Reference Guides):
Web searching:
- Engines
- Tips
- Use advanced searching to control words, where it searches, domains
- Limit to title to reduce results
What's cool:
- Knovel for full-text books such as Handbook of Composites, Properties of Crystalline Silicon, Aqueous Organometallic Catalysis, and Chemistry of Precious Metals. Some of the books such as Polymer Handbook are interactive, meaning you can put your own values in the tables.
- CRCnetBASE for full-text books online such as the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Dictionary of Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds, Carbon Nanomaterials, Ceramic Matrix Composites: Microstructure, Properties and Applications
- MatWeb Material Property Data
- SciGlass 6.6, The largest glass property database containing data for 286,000 glass compositions, including 14,000 halide and 24,000 chalcogenide glasses. It provides also property predictions and calculations, help you solve R&D problems - at GMP Library on CD Rom
- Structure searching in SciFinder Scholar - draw your compound's structure and search it against the database for literature, safety information, purchasing information, regulation information
- RSS feeds from databases or other alert mechanisms
Retrieving the material:
- If it's online, follow the links such as
or 
to the full-text.
- If a journal title is not in the UC Library Catalog, try Full Text Journals for items we own but are not represented in catalog.
- If it's not owned by UC, use ILLIAD to acquire through Interlibrary Loan. Set up an account!
Presenting your work:
dfb
4/26/07
updated 7/20/07
