PolyThinkers Pad

A wide selection of e-books at SpringerLink is now available for the Poly community to use on a trial basis through May 31st. SpringerLink offers journals and books in a variety of disciplines such as biomedicine, chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, computer science, humanities, and economics. Free access to tables of contents, detailed abstracts and editorial background are available for every publication, and full text is offered for many.

Take a moment to run a couple searches in SpringerLink and see how easy it is to narrow your results to fit your criteria. You can also sign up for alerts on the latest titles in your field. Give it a shot and let us know if you find it useful by leaving a comment below. Your feedback will help us decide whether or not to purchase this resource for the library.

Have you ever tracked down a book with a great title, certain that it would be relevant to your research, only to be sorely disappointed when you discover a mere five sentences on your topic of interest? Now there’s help! Microsoft Live Search Books offers a neat visual ruler that shows you how often and where your search terms appear in the book:

The green indicates where the search term “robotics” appears in the example above. This is a handy feature that can help you determine if a book is relevant to your needs before you make the effort to hunt it down.

For more help on searching for books online, visit the library’s Online Books Guide.

Climate change, renewable energy, food shortages… unless you live in a cave, chances are you’ve heard or read about these important environmental issues in the media lately. Now you have a new resource at your disposal to help you research all things environmental: GreenFILE.

This bibliographic database from EBSCO draws on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as technology, health, education, and law. It contains nearly 300,000 citations of both scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports. Full text is available for selected titles.

Do you ever need to find quick and comprehensive statistical data on a country?  Ever interested in comparing lesser known quantitative data from two or more countries?  Have a look at the Britannica Online World Data Analyst.  “Country Snapshots” provide the basic  data on a country.  “Ranked Statistics”  lets you view the countries with the highest or lowest rank in a particular category.   “Chronological Comparisons” allows you to select one or more countries, choose a data category, and display how they compare historically in either table format or chart format.  “Current Comparisons” enable you to display the most current available data in table or chart format.    Data fields include such recognizable and high demand ones as “GNP,” “Life expectancy,” and lesser known fields like “Percent of economically active engaged in services,” and even “Roots and tubers production.”  So whether you need to do some serious research, or are just looking to indulge your curiousity, this resource is well worth your time.

When you are looking for books on a topics in a library catalog, your first attempt will probably be a keyword search. After all, that is the way you do it using a web search tool like Google, and it is natural to think that keywords would bring up the best results. A keyword search does work in the online library catalog, but with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the topic. This is because it matches what you type in with anything in the item record, even the author’s name or the place of publication. If you are not having much luck using a keyword search, try a subject search. Books that appear under a subject category have been evaluated by someone and manually assigned to that category. Often, you have a better chance of retrieving more relevant results by using a subject search.

Interested in what a particular search option means? Just ask us.

Try using a subject guide next time you are not sure where to begin the research process. The librarians at Dibner library have pulled together recommended resources for each area of study offered at Polytechnic. You’ll find lists of quality web sites, professional organizations, relevant databases and more.

For general tips and helpful tools, view our Research & Writing Guide. When it comes time to write that final paper, visit Poly’s Writing Center for one-on-one assistance.

Need more help? Ask Us!

Sure, Google searches billions of web pages, but it doesn’t come close to indexing the entire internet. A vast repository of information exists on the web that search engines such as Google don’t have access to. This is commonly referred to as the “deep web” or “invisible web.” Most of the deep web is made up of the contents of specialized, searchable databases that contain high quality information such as journal articles, technical reports, and scientific data.

The best way to start your search of the deep web is with one of the many valuable subscription databases Dibner Library provides access to. You can browse databases by subject area or ask a librarian for help in selecting a database for your research.

You can also search the deep web using free search portals that dig beneath the surface web to locate subject-based information that may not be indexed by Google. For example, the Science Accelerator utilizes federated search technology which retrieves results from multiple research databases located in different departments within the U.S. Department of Energy. It includes full-text documents, bibliographic citations, ePrints, patents as well as project summaries.

Other useful search tools for digging into the deep web include:

• E-print Network
• Infomine
• Scitopia
• TechXtra

For easy access, you can find these sites and others listed in the research tools section in the right sidebar of this blog.

Next time you need the latest information from the world’s top management and marketing journals, check out Business Source Elite (log-in required). It provides full text coverage for over 1,000 business and economics journals, including nearly 500 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to full text dating back as far as 1985, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 1,750 journals. Titles covered include: Forbes, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Research Technology Management, and many others. You can also look up detailed company profiles for the world’s 10,000 largest companies (click on “company profiles” under the advanced search tab).

Business Source Elite is one of the many databases that provides the Poly community with online access to scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, and reference books - most of which are available in full text. Log in with your Poly ID number and a world of valuable information awaits you. Visit the library website for a complete list of available databases.

If you read last semester’s post on reference management, then you are already familiar with Zotero, the free citation manager that works with the Firefox web browser. Now is your chance to learn more about this handy tool and how it can help you keep your research in order. Dibner Library will be presenting an online program, offered by OPAL, in Room 433 next Wednesday, January 23. Details below:

The Mark of Zotero: Two-Clicks to Citation Management
Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 2:00 p.m.
Dibner Library, Room 433
No registration required

Zotero, designed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, is a free downloadable extension for the Firefox web browser. It allows researchers to keep track of bibliographies, notes, even copies of articles and pictures– all within the browser window. It integrates with several word processors to make creating a reference or a bibliography a two-click process.
Chris Strauber, Reference and Web Services Librarian at Wofford College, will demonstrate the program and discuss it as a possible replacement for products like Procite and Refworks.

Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn how Zotero can help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.

In-cites compiled the 100 most-cited scientists for 2007 in the following fields:

• Biology & Biochemistry
• Chemistry
• Economics & Business
• Immunology
• Microbiology
• Molecular Biology & Genetics
• Neuroscience & Behavior
• Pharmacology & Toxicology
• Physics