1. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Oxford University Library Services – Information Skills Training WISER Science Electronic Resources for Biology Roger Mills and Kate Williams January 2006

2. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Types of resource  Electronic journals  Some packages with own search interface  Bibliographic databases with abstracts  Various search interfaces  ‘Hard’ data bases  Especially in molecular biology  Gateways to web sites  Some subject-specific e.g. BIOME

3. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Getting together  The different types are converging  Molecular biology model likely to extend  Important to be clear what you are searching; the same data can be accessed in different ways and interfaces look very different

4. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources E-journals  Access via TDNet  Publisher packages – Elsevier ScienceDirect  Subject-based packages – BioOne  TOUR links from other bibliographic databases  Alerts available from most collections

5. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources RSS feeds  Increasingly popular for ‘keeping up’  Easy to set up, use an RSS reader or Firefox  Look for the RSS logo

6. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources

8. Secondary sources  Bibliographic databases:  Web of Knowledge (sub)  SCOPUS (sub)  Electronic Reference Library (sub)  SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts) (sub)  PubMed (free)

9. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources

11. Hard data sources  Entrez

12. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources

14. Gateways to web sites  Resources selected by subject specialists  Much more focussed than Google  Independent evaluation  UK Resource Discovery Network  BIOME

15. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources

17. Why use an abstracting service?  Plus points:  Wide coverage  Content chosen by independent subject specialists  Publisher independent  Long back runs  Minus points:  No full text within database  Complex searching

18. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Biological abstracting services  Leading products available in Oxford  Biological Abstracts  CAB Abstracts  Zoological Record  Forest Science Database (TreeCD)  Medline  Cambridge Scientific Abstracts

19. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Access  Via OxLIPOxLIP  Biological Abstracts  CAB Abstracts  Zoological Record  TreeCD  Medline [moving to OVID Web gateway Feb 06]  All above are on ERL (using Ovid [SilverPlatter] software)  CSA uses different software

20. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Access outside Oxford  For ERL use Virtual Private Network (VPN) – set up BEFORE leaving Oxford  http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/vpn/oucs-service/ http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/vpn/oucs-service/  For CSA use ATHENS http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/athens/ http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/athens/

21. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources ERL databases  Choice of web or windows software  Multiple database selection  Cross- searching of different services simultaneously possible BUT  Thesauri will not work  Some fields are database-specific

22. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Main scope  Very broadly:  Biological Abstracts: pure science  CAB Abstracts: applied science  Zoological Record: zoology  Forest Science Database: forest science  Medline: medicine  CSA: all, particularly environmental

23. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Overlap  Significant across all, but:  High proportion of references unique to one database  Duplicates may be abstracted/indexed from different viewpoints  No automatic de-duplication

24. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Today  Biological Abstracts (BA)  CAB Abstracts (CAB)  Zoological Record (ZR)  For others see other talks  For more detail on above see individual talks  www.plantlib.ox.ac.uk/courses www.plantlib.ox.ac.uk/courses

25. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Biological Abstracts  Over 5.5 million records from 1980 to date  Annual growth c. 360,000 records  OXFORD:  electronic version 1985-date  print version 1926-1984 (in RSL)

26. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources BA geographical coverage  4000 journals from 90 countries Asia, Australasia (14%) North America (31%) Europe & Middle East (52%) Africa (1%) Central & S. America (2%)

27. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources BA subject coverage  Traditional topics:  Molecular biology, Botany, Zoology, Ecology and the Environment, Microbiology  Interdisciplinary areas  Experimental, Clinical and Veterinary Medicine, Biotechnology and Genetics, Agriculture and Nutrition, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Public Health  Related areas  Methods, Instrumentation

28. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Zoological Record  Over 1.5 million records from 1978-present  Annual growth c.72,000  Monthly updates

29. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources ZR  First published 1865 as The Record of Zoological Literature  Originally produced by a group of zoologists associated with the Zoological Society of London and the British Museum  From 1980-2002 published jointly by BIOSIS and the Zoological Society of London  2003- published by BIOSIS  2004 BIOSIS sold to Thomson

30. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources ZR in Oxford  Available in Oxford  Printed version: 1864 – date:  RSL pt. 1-20. (1864- date)  OUM (1864-1965) pt. 1. Comprehensive Zoology; pt.12. Aracnida; (1864-1989) pt.13. Insecta; pt. 20; List of new taxonomic names  ZOO-AL (1870-1998) pt.18. Aves  ZOO-EL (1902-1990 imp.) pt.19.Mammalia  Electronic version: 1978 – date

31. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources ZR subject coverage  All aspects of zoology and animal science  Experimental and domestic animals (and humans) generally not included  Behaviour, biodiversity, biochemistry, conservation, ecology, evolution, freshwater biology, genetics, marine biology, morphology, palaeontology, parasitology and diseases, reproduction, systematics, techniques, zoogeography

32. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources ZR geographical coverage  Source material from 100+ countries Asia, Australasia (19%) North America (20%) Europe & Middle East (55%) Africa (2%) Central & S. America (4%)

33. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources CAB Abstracts  Over 4 million abstracts  Print publication in numerous separate subject sections, with different start dates – 1930’s on  Online since 1972  Certain sections from vol 1, including forestry (1939-)

34. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources CAB subject coverage  Plant Science, Animal Science, Human Health, Parasitology, Ecology, Forestry, Soil Science, Food Science & products, Agricultural Economics, Biotechnology, Agricultural Engineering, Leisure and Tourism.

35. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources CAB geographical coverage  Source material from 100+ countries Asia, Australasia (22%) North America (26%) Europe & Middle East (46%) Africa (2%) Central & S. America (4%)

36. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Common fields  AU, TI, SO, PY, AB  Sort by these to identify duplicates when cross-searching  Note that author names are always in the form Bloggs-AB  Controlled terms linked with hyphen if more than one word  e.g. forest-ecology

37. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources Database-specific fields  Indexing terms differ  Field labels for controlled terms MAY differ  They may be the same e.g. DE but the contents may not be equivalent – so hyperlinks may mislead

38. W orkshops in I nformation S kills and E lectronic R esources

41. In general  Start with a general search across all likely databases  Refine by searching within individual databases on their own  Use the help to discover what is in index fields and how the controlled vocabularies work  More help on database websites  See links from www.plantlib.ox.ac.uk/courseswww.plantlib.ox.ac.uk/courses

42. Today’s search topic  Research into establishing the feeding behaviour of elephants.  What are the 3 key concepts to use in your search?

43. Search terms  The main concepts to search for: elephant elephant feeding feeding behaviour behaviour

44. Searching techniques  To combine search terms: AND, OR (Boolean connectors) AND, OR (Boolean connectors) AND to narrow the search AND to narrow the search OR to broaden the search (British/American spellings, synonyms) OR to broaden the search (British/American spellings, synonyms)

45. OR, AND elephant behaviourfeeding

46. Search tips  Wildcards  Use a question mark (?) to replace a single character E.g. Wom?n finds woman or women E.g. Wom?n finds woman or women  Use an asterisk (*) to truncate terms E.g. enzym* for enzyme, enzymes, enzymology etc E.g. enzym* for enzyme, enzymes, enzymology etc  Search for an exact phrase using double quotes E.g. “feeding behaviour” will retrieve different results from feeding behaviour. E.g. “feeding behaviour” will retrieve different results from feeding behaviour.

47. Search string  Search terms:  elephant* AND  Behavio?r OR habit* AND  eating OR feeding OR diet*  You will probably find more search terms from retrieved records while searching.