• Search Statements - Finding Search Terms
  Example Search Statement
   
• Research Material Types   [OFF_CAMPUS ACCESS-PASSWORD or VPN to databases]
     Reference Materials
     Online Catalog: Books, Journal Holdings, Maps, Videos, Software, etc.
     Science Indexes and Full text Databases 
     Internet Sources
    
• Finding out  if/where the library has your journal article
  SMC [Online Catalog]
  Electronic Journals- A to Z list of full text periodicals available in SMC Library
   
• What to do if you can't get your journal articles or books electronically or in the library?
  Interlibrary Loan
  UVM Journal Holdings   .......map to UVM Bailey Howell, Cook and Dana Libraries
   
• Assignment in-class

The following simple search statement can be broken down to searchable terms.  Each term can be broken down to synonymous, broader, or narrower terms.

Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Intercalated DNA

photoin* AND "electron transfer" AND (dna OR deoxyribonucleic acid)

The Boolean Term AND narrows your search
The Boolean Term OR broadens your search
Truncation symbols for different databases   (?, *, !) will provide variant spelling after the root word. 
For Example: gene* = gene, genes, genetics, 

**Reference Sources: Secondary Source (Can lead you to Primary Sources) -ALS0, Statistical Data

Dictionary of Physics
REF QC5 .D53 2004

Access Science 
Published by McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology.  Excellent authoritative science articles authored by experts in their fields.  Includes dictionary and full length articles.

Britannica Online

Encyclopedia of Spectroscopy and Spectrometry
Published by Academic Press, this encyclopedia provides a comprehensive and up-to-date explanation of the most important spectroscopic and related techniques together with their applications. 
[REF QC450.3 .E53 2000].

Handbook of Inorganic Compounds
REF QD 155.5  .h36

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
REF QD 65 .h3 2004-05

The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors
REF QD 8.5 A25

Statistical Record of the Environment
REF TD 180 .S73 1994

Lange's Handbook of Chemistry
REF QD 65 .L362 1992

Other Library Catalogs: UVM, WorldCat
Available @ http://www2.smcvt.edu/library/resources/catalogs.htm  

WorldCat  The OCLC Online Union Catalog, containing over 50 million records of books, Web resources, and other material owned by libraries worldwide. It is the the world's largest database of bibliographic information, and represents 4,000 years of recorded history.

Searching for Books and Materials in the Library Catalog using Subject and Keyword Searching: [Use the LCSH: Library of Congress Subject Headings to find subject headings]

**SUBJECT SEARCHING (FOR BOOKS) - possible headings (not exhaustive)
Choose FIND, then SUBJECT
1. Photochemistry
2. Organic photochemistry.
3. Photobiology.
4.  Electron transfer reaction.
See: Oxidation-reduction reaction.
5. DNA

***KEYWORD SEARCHING (For searching Books, Chem Abstracts, Basic Biosis, Medline, Search Engines)

Keyword allows you to use "natural language" searching &
Boolean Operators (and, or, not) to broaden or narrow your search
Truncation:  allows for variant spelling of word stems (?, *, !)
Phrase searching: Some databases look only for words adjacent to each other.  Some databases require that you put the phrase in quotations ("free radical?")  

EX: electron transfer and photo?
EX: chem? and photoin?

Materials: Maps, videos, etc.
EX: map? and chem?
EX: video? and chem?

Truncation symbols for different databases   

I. General Multidisciplinary Databases @ 
http://www2.smcvt.edu/library/articles/alphabetical.htm
All of the databases and indexes below may be reached from this page.  Also, information about accessing databases off-campus is available here.

Academic Search Premier
Excellent source for full text primary scientific journals. The largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for nearly 4,600 scholarly publications, including more than 3,500 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,043 journals in the collection

photoin* AND intercala* AND dna

photoin* AND "electron transfer" AND dna

Expanded Academic ASAP
Includes abstracts or references for articles from more than 3,000 scholarly, trade and general-interest publications, as well as references for The New York Times.  Full-text coverage for 1900 titles.  Included are core titles in every major academic concentration, including astronomy, religion, law, history, psychology, humanities, current events, sociology, communications and the general sciences

JSTOR 
Full text archive of over scholarly journals including 6 Ecology journals

Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1970-1997

Ecological Applications 1991-1998

Ecological Monographs 1931-1998

Ecology 1920-1998

Journal of Animal Ecology 1932-1999

Journal of Ecology 1913-1999

LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe
The LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe database offers full text coverage for news, business, legal and medical information. Sources include newspapers, magazines, wire service news, newsletters, journals, company and industry reports, broadcast transcripts and reference databases.

Ingenta (formerly CARL UnCover)
http://www.ingenta.com/ 
A database of current article information taken from well over 18,000 multidisciplinary journals. Ingenta contains brief descriptive information for over 8,800,000 articles which have appeared since Fall 1988.
 

• II. Science Databases @ http://www2.smcvt.edu/library/resources/databases.htm

Scitation  (register to search publications)
Scitation is the online home of more than 100 journals from AIP, APS, ASCE, ASME, SPIE, and a host of other prestigious science and engineering societies

Chemical Abstracts    
The premiere index to the chemical literature dating back to 1907.  Access is limited to weekends and after 5pm weekdays.  See STN Hours of Operation for complete information.

Medline
National Library of Medicine's search service with access to 9 million citations in MEDLINE and Pre-MEDLINE.

See PubMed Central for its collect of full text journals

Basic Biosis
Records from 375 core life science journals most easily found in college and university libraries.  Excellent annotations and indexing terms.

AGRICOLA
Produced by the National Agricultural Library, this database indexes books, electronic media, and over 900 journal publications dating back to 1970. Coverage includes all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines.
 

• III. Citation Searching / Mediated Searching (Science Database):  The following databases can be accessed by asking a librarian to log you on or they will do the search for you.  A citation index gives you an idea of how "popular" the article is with other scientists.  And also points you to related research.
  
  Google Scholar - still in Beta, but an adequate free citation index
  
  SciSearch (Available through Dialog)
  A Cited Reference Science Database is an international, multidisciplinary index to the literature of science, technology, biomedicine, and related disciplines produced by the Institute for Scientific Information® (ISI®). SciSearch contains all of the records published in the Science Citation Index® (SCI®), plus additional records from the Current Contents® publications.
  CLICK for EXAMPLE SCIENCE CITATION SEARCH 

WebElements^TM periodic table Scholar edition

An excellent source for subject guides to the Sciences can be found the Argus Clearinghouse @ www.clearinghouse.net

Physics, Astronomy, & Meteorology
A guide to SMC Library and Internet resources.

The following Questions (1-6 )  refer to the journal article:
Long-Range Photoinduced Electron Transfer Through a DNA Helix from the journal Science;   Vol 262, 1025. by Murphy, C. J. Murphy, et al.

1.  Use the Periodical Title Abbreviations in the Reference Section (REF Z 6945 .A2 ) or Medline @ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=journals to answer the following

What are the full journal titles of the abbreviations from the following references cited in the above article.  [Only search for the first journal given in each reference]

-- #1

-- #6

-- #35

2. Use an online catalog to find out if the SMC and UVM Libraries carries the journal issue cited in the following references.   Give the years the journal is carried at each institution. [Only search for the first journal given in each reference]

-- #1

-- #6

-- #35

3. The journal Science is carried by SMC Library in Print and Electronically.  Find the Science article cited in reference #2 in electronic format.  Hint - Use Electronic Journals A-to-Z found in the left column of every LIS web page.  Print  the first page of the article.

4. Give three keywords that could be used to search a database for similar journal articles on the same topic.

a). --

b) --

c) --
 

5. Give a citation # and title from the References list of the article Long-Range Photoinduced Electron Transfer Through a DNA Helix  that is a book, not a journal.   Explain how you can tell the difference.

6. Use Google Scholar to find other articles that cite Long-Range Photoinduced Electron Transfer Through a DNA Helix.  How many according to Google Scholar?

7. Write out a search statement in sentence form that you might consider for your Research Proposal.  Note - You may change your topic later after conferring with Professor Karstens.   

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Identify the two or three main concepts in your search statement and break them down into synonymous, narrower, or broader terms:

Concept 1                 and        Concept 2            and       Concept 3
1                                             1                                       1

2                                             2                                       2

3                                             3                                       3

For the above search statement find a total of 8 sources that could be used for your research:
1)   - 1 reference sources (statistics, subject encyclopedias, other)
2)   - 1 book sources or (videos, maps, software) from SMC Library Collection or WorldCat
3)   - 4 Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper articles  (use Chemical Abstracts, Academic Search Premier or any of the other Science databases for your searches)
   A. 3 of the 4 must be a peer reviewed research article
   B. Determine if SMC Library has the Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper article and if so, where they are located in the library

Required: You must have a printout of the citation for each source (or the photocopy or printout of the full text article).

4)   - 1 Internet sources on your topic
Required: Print out the first page of the Internet Source
Summarize each site -- write a brief description of what is at the site
Briefly evaluate each site - by authority, objectivity, timeliness, focus
(Review Evaluating Information @ http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/susabeck/evalcrit.html

5) - List 2 points about the research process or this assignment that was frustrating or confusing