Suggested Information Resources for

Sustainable Futures Institute: Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Librarian: Dave Lepse (dlepse@mtu.edu)

 

 

REU 2007 project examples and descriptions

1. Atmospheric deposition and exchange of persistent bioaccumulative toxicants in Lake Superior

2. Carbon cycling in the Great Lakes

3. Embodied energy of water treatment and supply

4. Wood to wheels biofuels (see also Wood-to-Wheels enterprise program at Michigan Tech)

 

Guide to the Library - http://www.lib.mtu.edu/about/MTU_Library_Guide.pdf

Answers your questions about the basics of using the MTU Library.

 

For Assistance - Ask a Librarian

For individual assistance or instruction from a librarian, visit or phone the Reference/Information Desk (487-2507), e-mail reflib@mtu.edu.

 

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) access to items from other libraries.

Requests are made through ILLiad, the personalized online ILL account system.  After your initial registration is complete, use ILLiad to request books and articles.   ILLiad also allows you to track the status of your requests and cancel requests. 

ILL requests may also be made directly through most research databases such as WorldCat, CSA Metadex, and Compendex.  Follow the HuskyFetch menu options and select "Get Item from another Library via ILLiad."  Please be sure to check the JRVP Library holdings before submitting a request directly from a database.

 

Locating Books & Periodicals

Books are located on the Third Floor in the Main Collection, shelved by Library of Congress call number.

Periodicals are shelved by Library of Congress call number in these locations:

CURRENT JOURNALS (1^st Floor): Recent issues kept here until bound or reissued in microfilm/fiche.

SERIALS COLLECTION (Garden Level): Bound periodicals.

MICROFORMS AREA (2nd Floor): Microfilm & Microfiche cabinets located on west side of 2nd floor.

E-Journals: The Library subscribes to an increasing number of journals which provide electronic versions of their publications online. Access them through the Librarys web page.

 

Reference Collection - 2^nd Floor

The Reference Collection is a good place to collect background information on an issue or start your research. The collection is arranged by subject, using the Library of Congress Classification System (LCCS) call numbers. An outline of the system is available at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html.

 

 

Web sites

 

Intute: Science, Engineering and Technology is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research, evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists. It covers the physical sciences, engineering, computing, geography, mathematics and environmental science. The database currently contains 33484 records.

 

Intute: Science, Engineering and Technology: E-journals search engine

Search the content of over 250 freely available full-text engineering, mathematics and computing ejournals, selected for relevance and quality. Academic journals, trade publications and society journals are covered. All sites are also listed in the Intute: Science, Engineering and Technology catalogue of Internet resources.

 

TechXtra is a free service which can help you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, thesis & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing.

 

MITs D-Space MIT's online institutional repository built to save, share, and search MIT's digital research materials.

 

 

Databases for finding journal articles, conference papers, and technical reports

 

Database Keyword Search Tips - http://www.lib.mtu.edu/reference/tutorials/databasekeyword.aspx

 

To find citations to recent articles from journals, conference proceedings, and other publications, go to the Librarys web page and select E-Resources & E-Alerts. The resulting screen offers four search options for finding databases or electronic journals: (1) Keyword search of database titles and/or descriptions, (2) E-Resources A-Z to browse an alphabetical list by title (3) Search by Subject Headings, (4) Search by Provider.

 

Here are some recommended databases:

 

Applied Science & Technology Abstracts

Also known as ASTA, leads users to the latest findings in every area of science, engineering and technology. Covers trade and industrial publications, journals issued by professional and technical societies and specialized subject periodicals. Abstracts database records include abstracts and indexing information.

 

ASFA 1: Biological Sciences and Living Resources

Provides extensive coverage of basic and applied research on aquatic organisms. All aspects of marine, freshwater, and brackish water organisms and environments are examined, including information on biology and ecology of aquatic organisms, exploitation of living resources, and related legal, policy, and socioeconomic issues.

 

ASFA 3: Aquatic Pollution and Environmental Quality

Devoted exclusively to research and policy on the contamination of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and estuaries. It contains information that will prove essential to specialists who deal in any capacity with aquatic environments and marine pollution problems, including biologists, oceanographers, limnologists, environmental engineers and scientists, industrial engineers, waste managers, corporate regulatory affairs managers, and government officials.

 

Compendex

Provides comprehensive access to the latest engineering research covering engineering and applied science, containing over seven million references and abstracts taken from over 5,000 engineering journals, conferences and technical reports. Compendex is the online version of Engineering Index.

Access Note: Compendex is also commonly known as Engineering Village.

 

Ecology Abstracts

Coverage ranging from habitats to food chains, from erosion to land reclamation, the journal provides an important cross-section of current findings in target research areas. Detailed information on resource and ecosystems management and modeling contributes to the journal's practical value, as does material on the impact of climate, water resources, soil, and man or growing environmental problems such as depletion, erosion, and pollution all topics which are covered in depth.

 

Energy Citations Database (U.S. Dept. of Energy)

Includes bibliographic records of literature in disciplines of interest to DOE such as chemistry, physics, materials, environmental science, geology, engineering, mathematics, climatology, oceanography, computer science and related disciplines. It includes citations to report literature, conference papers, journal articles, books, dissertations, and patents.

 

ENGnetBASE

Compiles a wide range of information previously published in CRC engineering handbooks. The online database will be updated continually, and its coverage will be expanded. Current coverage includes general, structural, electrical, mechanical, civil, environmental, remediation, and optomechanical engineering.

 

Environmental Engineering Abstracts

Covers the world literature pertaining to technological and engineering aspects of air and water quality, environmental safety, and energy production.

 

Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management

Covering key areas if environmental science, including toxic hazards of chemical pharmaceuticals and other substances: air, marine and freshwater pollution as well as biochemical applications in water treatment and pollution are also covered.

 

Google Scholar
Web search engine designed specifically to locate scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports across broad areas of research.
Access Note: click here for additional information about Google Scholar.
Also if you are coming from off campus you will be asked for your ISO Login and Password. This will grant you full text access to those full text resources that the JRVP library has secured.

 

Information Bridge (U.S. Dept. of Energy)

Provides records of Department of Energy (DOE) research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics.

 

Mechanical and Transportation Engineering Abstracts

Provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the serials literature in mechanical and transportation engineering and their complementary fields, including forensic engineering, management and marketing of engineering services, engineering education, theoretical mechanics and dynamics, and mathematics and computation.

 

National Technical Information Service

A resource for accessing the latest U.S. government-sponsored research and worldwide scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. NTIS is the central source for the sale of unclassified and publicly available information from research reports, journal articles, data files, computer programs and audio visual products from Federal sources.

 

NTIS/GPO DARTS (Depository Access to Reports, Technical and Scientific)

This is a pilot NTIS and GPO project which includes documents from the Department of Energy (DOE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), and NTIS. The documents in the NTIS collection with the PB accession number prefix are the products of many different Federal agencies and include both agency and contract studies. Most reports from 1997-2000 are scanned into the image system.

Access Note: Available only in the library. Please see a reference librarian for access.

 

Pollution Abstracts

Combines information on scientific research and government policies in a single resource. Topics of growing concern are extensively covered from the standpoints of atmosphere, emissions, mathematical models, effects on people and animals, and environmental action in response to global pollution issues.

 

SAE (Society of Automotive Engineering) technical papers

Indexes and abstracts the published literature on self-propelled vehicles, including technical papers, conference papers, and journal articles. PLEASE READ: Guide to finding SAE papers in the library.

 

ScienceDirect

Extensive and unique full-text collection covers authoritative titles from the core scientific literature. ScienceDirect is designed as a basic electronic version of Elsevier Science print allowing you to access full-text articles published since 2003.

 

Science.gov

Contains reliable information resources selected by respective government agencies as their best science information. Two major types of information are included: selected authoritative science Web sites; and databases of technical reports, journal articles, conference proceedings and other published materials.

 

SciFinder Scholar

Retrieves information from databases produced by Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). The database contains over 16 million documents from more than 8000 chemical and chemistry-related journals covering literature from 1967 to the present. Search terms include research topic, author name, document identifier and chemical substance (including reactions and substructures)

Access Note: SciFinder Scholar is licensed for noncommercial use only by Michigan Tech faculty, staff and students who enrolled or employed on the Houghton campus.

 

TRIS Online (Transportation Research Information Service)

A comprehensive transportation database containing almost half a million records of references to books, technical reports, conference proceedings, journal articles and on-going research in the field of transportation.

 

USASearch.gov

Search engine for online government documents.

 

Water Resources Abstracts

Provides summaries of the world's technical and scientific literature on water-related topics covering the characteristics, conservation, control, pollution, treatment, use and management of water resources.

 

Web of Science

Offers Web of Science access to ISI Citation Indexes (Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index), which contains multidisciplinary, high quality research information from the world's leading science, social science and art and humanities journals. We now have unlimited access to WoS.

 

Windows Live Academic
Web search engine designed specifically to locate scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports across broad areas of research.
Access Note: If you are coming from off campus you will be asked for your ISO Login and Password. This will grant you full text access to those full text resources that the JRVP library has secured.

 

 

Dissertations and Theses

 

Current Research @ Michigan Technological University

Provides a searchable full text database of dissertations submitted by Michigan Tech to UMI's Dissertation database. Full-text PDF files are available for most dissertations from 1968. Also includes some theses.

Access Note: Downloading the full PDF files may take up to five minutes. ProQuest/UMI sends an email message to your account when the file is ready. The message contains instructions for retrieving the full dissertation via the web.

 

Dissertation Abstracts

Includes citations to every doctoral dissertation completed in the U.S. at accredited institutions since 1861 and some master's theses and foreign language dissertations.

 

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

The Networked Digital Library of Thesis and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations.

 

WorldCat Dissertations and Theses

Provides fast and convenient access to the dissertations and theses available in OCLC member libraries. Many theses are available electronically, at no charge, directly from the publishing institution.

 

 

Patents

 

Google Patent Search

With Google Patent Search, you can now search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus and find patents that interest you.

 

Patents database from US Patent and Trademark Office

US patents are primarily covered. Provides both bibliographic and full-text searching.

Access Note: Viewing full-page images requires a TIFF image browser plug-in. Links to plug-ins are at http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/plugins/index.html (If you do not have a TIFF image browser plug-in or would rather view the patent as a pdf you can enter the patent number at http://www.pat2pdf.org )

 

The European Patent Office

This database enables you to search the patent applications published by the European Patent Office over the last 24 months (for EP patents older than 24 months you should select the worldwide database option).

 

 

 

Current awareness resources

 

Many of the databases that you have access to through the JRVP Library databases page allow you to register for a personal account. The registration is free and allows you to use tools designed to keep you up-to-date in your research and teaching. Journal tables of contents, the results of stored database searches as well as updated search results, and citation alerts for newly indexed papers are sent to you by email or RSS feed.

 

Some of the relevant databases that offer current awareness services:

 

Blackwell Synergy

Offers saved search and journal contents email alerts.

 

Compendex

Offers saved search email alerts.

 

CSA Illumina

Mechanical and Transportation Engineering Abstracts and NTIS are both CSA Illumina databases.

Offers email saved search alerts.

 

Ingenta table of contents email alerts, rss feeds, and saved searches.

 

ScienceDirect (Elsevier journals) offers saved search, journal tables of contents, citation, and topic email alerts

 

Web of Knowledge (Science Citation Index) offers search and citation alerts through email and RSS feeds.

 

 

 

Evaluating Information Sources - Consult these sites provided by other institutions:

Identifying Research Articles: http://gateway.library.uiuc.edu/lsx/tutorial/section3.html

Identifying Refereed Journals: http://gateway.library.uiuc.edu/lsx/tutorial/section3_1.html

Evaluating Web Sites: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html

 

 

Citation style guides:

A list of resources compiled by JRVP librarian: http://www.lib.mtu.edu/xmldata/course_guides/80.aspx

 

 

Reference database management software:

EndNote Web is citation management software. Its used to develop bibliographic databases; import and export citations, organize references, and create bibliographies. The JRVP Library has a site license to EndNote Web, but registration is required.