The Big Picture: Navigating the Sea of Scholarly Information Textiles Graduate Seminar Honora N. Eskridge September 20, 2006

Information Discovery What is research? Changing expectations What kinds of research do you do in graduate school? Literature reviews: Journals Conferences Citation trails (Web of Science). Patentability. Product development (marketing/business data). Physical data and chemical properties.

Flow of Scholarly Information Which literature types do you use the library to find? Which library tool do you use for each type of literature?

What We’re Going to Focus on… The role of journal articles in communication between researchers. Economics of scholarly information – Why can’t Google get you everything you need? Article discovery Article access Managing information

Web Search Engines – Yahoo!, Google, Lycos, etc. World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! This is the surface of the Web

The Deep Web Web Search Engines World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! Web pages containing search tools The Deep Web

Silos of Information Web Search Engines $ $ free! $ free! $ $ free! $ World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! Web pages containing search tools (DATABASES) Silos of Information $ $ free! $ free! $ $ free! $ $ $ free!

Compare looking for research articles to finding and buying an airline ticket Searching Google doesn’t work – you have to select the right type of database (Expedia, Travelocity). The database is free – ads pay for it. Discovery. You are now searching a database for a specific document – the right ticket. Now you choose the best document for your needs, in this case the best flight. Access means buying the ticket. The ‘document’ costs money!

Searching Google doesn’t work well – you have to select the right type of database (Compendex, Inspec). The database costs money – no ads! The library pays for it. Discovery. You are now searching a database for specific documents – research articles. Now you choose the best document(s) for your needs, in this case an IEEE article. Now you determine if the library owns this article Access occurs because the library bought the journal. The ‘document’ costs money!

Discovery and Access are separate functions Discover citation in database: -Proof document was published. Access to document is available only because: -The library bought the journal the article appears in. FindText@NCSU: -Proof NCSU owns document. -The Library bought it. Discovery and Access are separate functions

Economics of Scholarly Info Academic Information is a BIG BUSINESS The players: Scholars Writing Publishers Packaging/Selling Database (index/abstract) companies Discovery/Selling Libraries Access/Buying Big Money! http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/jcosts/ NCSU Elsevier subscriptions. These factors directly influence what you can read and use in your research!!

Important Databases for Textiles World Textiles Textile Technology Index Business Source Premiere (TATM) Lexis Nexis Academic (TATM) Compendex (TE) Web of Science (TECS/TATM) Scifinder Scholar (TC/PCC) PubMed (Medical Textiles)

Article Discovery

Managing Information Managing Information Learn how to Set up alerts for new journal articles Use Refworks Use RSS (depends on your field) We can teach you how to manage your information More efficient and more organized = more productive.

Contact Information Honora N. Eskridge Head, Textiles Library and Engineering Services 515-6120 honora_eskridge@ncsu.edu Scott Warren Assistant Head, Textiles Library and Engineering Services 515-6602 Scott_warren@ncsu.edu