Activity 1 - CHEE 360: Chemical Engineering Lab - Literature Search

How to Access Electronic Resources Off-Campus?

Finding E-Journals with Publication Finder
Lists electronic journals and conference proceedings that we subscribe. It lists some of our eBooks, but not all of them.

Finding Advancements and News Releases

An advancement is a general movement of the field. As newcomers, you will have to tease this out from the literature. I suggest you find a topic of genuine interest first, then look at the news over the last six months and try to find multiple news items on a change to your topic. Below are some places to look for news and industry reports.

The "Industry Reports & Research" topic on the Activity 3 page might also help.

Chemical & Engineering News
The news magazine of the American Chemical Society, which comes free with an ACS membership. Some of the articles can be found on the website.
Chemical Engineering
Another trade magazine that UA Libraries subscribes. The most recent issue is free at Chemical Engineering website opens new window
Google News – Science Section
This is a direct link to the science section, but this is just a focused Google search.
Chemical Engineering Progress
Trade publication of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Available through Factiva.

Finding Articles

The databases in this section will mostly help you find articles.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles.
SciFinder-N This link opens in a new window
New users must register for a SciFinder-n account.
Chemical information primarily from Chemical Abstracts, CAS registry, and Medline. Excellent search tool for finding chemical information from journals, patents, conference proceedings, and technical reports. Training for SciFinder-n is available from the vendor
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A rich collection of citation indexes representing the citation connections between scholarly research articles found in the most globally significant journals, books, and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences and art & humanities.

How do I find Books?

If you are searching for a specific book, try the catalogs in this list. If you don't find it from one catalog, try the next catalog in the list.

Sometimes it is convenient to search electronic books directly particularly when looking for quick facts or code syntax. Refer to the electronic book sources in this section or the previous section, Databases to Find Aritcles, Books and More. Use the descriptions to find the databases that contain electronic books that are most closely related to your topic. Keep in mind that not all books will be available for download. It depends on the database and the library's subscriptions.

UA Libraries Catalog
Search for materials owned by UA Libraries.

Knovel This link opens in a new window
Over 800 essential reference books and databases from the world's leading scientific publishers and professional societies in 18 industrially important subject areas.
Springer Link This link opens in a new window
Not all books and journals will be available because UA libraries doesn't subscribe to everything.
Wiley Online Library This link opens in a new window
Not all books and journals will be available because UA libraries doesn't subscribe to everything.
O'Reilly Books This link opens in a new window
Electronic books in computer science, information technology, business, and related fields. Note: Here are Instructions for accessing O'Reilly eBooks

Using ZipSearch

Subject or Course Guides are a great place to go to find out about a subject.

ZipSearch is a good place to start. It searches several of our databases and catalogs simultaneously. Don't use ZipSearch for in-depth research.

Good use – Find one article to review for a class project.

Poor use – Perform a background search for your senior project.

Use the databases directly for in-depth research on a topic. If you know exactly what book, DVD, etc. that you want, use the UA Libraries Catalog directly.

*Images provided by Microsoft Clip Art

ZipSearch This link opens in a new window
The library's most comprehensive search engine. It includes articles, books, journals, conference proceedings, streaming videos, book reviews, and more. Search over 100 databases simultaneously, including Academic Search Complete, JSTOR, and ScienceDirect. For more information, visit this ZipSearch guide.