1. Information Skills Training – Physics Selina Lock Information Librarian (Sciences) STL5@le.ac.uk

2. Session Objectives  An introduction to searching for information.  A demonstration of the key bibliographic databases. All links in this presentation can also be found via the Physics Room: http://rooms1.library.le.ac.uk/rooms/portal http://rooms1.library.le.ac.uk/rooms/portal

3. What is a Bibliographic Database?  “Bibliographic Database - contains descriptive information for publications, such as books and journal articles.”  Bibliographic information normally consists of author, title, source (journal title), year, volume & page numbers.  For our purposes it is an electronic way of searching for journal articles.

4. Types of Search  Keyword/Subject Search.  Author Search  Citation Search

5. Keyword Search  Question: Find articles about the evolution of black holes  Identify the important concepts and words in the question: Evolution Black Holes

6. Think about variations of the keywords you’re using:  Evolution Evolutionary, evolve, evolving  Black Holes Black hole, collapsar.

7. Truncation

8. Boolean Logic  AND This is used to combine search terms to narrow your search.

9. Boolean Logic  OR This is used where various terms might describe the same object.

10. Keyword Search Strategy  (Black hole* OR Collapsar*) AND Evol* The brackets are used, as they would be in a mathematical equation, to instruct the database how to combine the search terms.

11. Author Search  Question: Find an article by Dr James T French.  Search on: French J*

12. Citation Searching  This is possible in the Web of Science, Scopus & Google Scholar.  Question: How many times has an article by Dr Yeoman published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 1999, been cited?  Scopus Answer: 13 times.  Web of Science Answer: 13 times  Google Scholar: 6 times

13. INSPEC  Summary: The premier database for access to the world's leading scientific and technical literature in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and computing and information technology.  Coverage: 1969 to present day.  Updated: Weekly  Passwords: Athens authentication using CFS username/password required off-campus.  http://www.engineeringvillage2.org http://www.engineeringvillage2.org

14. arXiv E-Print Service  Summary: Started in August 1991, arXiv.org (formerly xxx.lanl.gov) is a fully automated electronic archive and distribution server for research papers within the area of physics.  Coverage: Varies: articles have to be submitted by the author.  Updated: Daily  No passwords required.  http://xxx.soton.ac.uk/ (UK Mirror) http://xxx.soton.ac.uk/

15. Scopus  Summary: Scopus is an abstracts database of 27 million records covering articles from 14,000 peer-reviewed titles from more than 4,000 international publishers. Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering: 4,500 titles  Coverage: 1966 to present day.  Updated: Daily  Passwords: Athens authentication using CFS username/password required off-campus.  http://www.scopus.com http://www.scopus.com

16. Science Citation Index (Web of Science via Web of Knowledge)  Summary: Science Citation Index fully indexes over 5,300 major science journals. The database provides coverage of research and scholarly articles, book and other reviews, editorial material, letters and biographical items.  Coverage: 1970 to present day.  Updated: Weekly  Passwords: Athens authentication using CFS username/password required off-campus.  http://wok.mimas.ac.uk http://wok.mimas.ac.uk

17. Scholarly Search Engines  Google scholar: http://scholar.google.com http://scholar.google.com Includes links to Leicester e-link when used on-campus.  Scirus: http://www.scirus.comhttp://www.scirus.com Specialist science-specific search engine from Elsevier Publishing.