Part II Acoustical Engineers Information Skills

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Part II Acoustical Engineers Information Skills

• Isobel Stark ISVR Academic Liaison Librarian
• i.a.stark_at_soton.ac.uk

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Objectives...

• This session will help you to
• Identify the most relevant resources for finding
  information
• Create a search strategy
• Track down the references
• Reference consistently and correctly

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Three important questions

1. What information do you need?
2. Where should you look for it?
3. How can you get hold of it?

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What information?

• high quality
• up to date
• relevant

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Evaluation criteria
Authority
Objectivity purpose
Currency
Accuracy
Relevance
Links
When created or updated

• Right
• subject
• and
• level

Who is the author
Target audience
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Evaluation

• Authority
• Who is the author?
• What are their credentials?
• Who is the publisher?
• Objectivity Purpose
• Why / for whom is the site written for?
• Links to other viewpoints?
• Trying to persuade, sell you something, inform
  or misinform?
• Country of origin - affects the slant of the
  information?

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Evaluation continued

• Currency
• When was the site produced / last updated?
• How current are references / links?
• Accuracy
• Are there supporting links / references to
  quality information?
• Relevance
• Content is appropriate for your purpose?
• Content is relevant to your topic?

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Types of Information

• Primary Research
• Secondary Research
• Technical Data and Standards
• Other grey literature

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3 Tiers of information resource
Information resource type Example Focus Currency
Tertiary EncyclopaediaDatabasesHandbooks Textbooks Topic overview, explanation, instruction, or history Can take a long time to publish so no always current
Secondary Review Articles Annual Reviews Reviews the current state of knowledge Currency can vary, some sources are more like tertiary and some more like primary sources
Primary Journal article Conference paper Detailed accounts of experiments and results by the researcher(s) Current
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Grey literature

• Does not fall into the traditional peer
  reviewed journal/conference model
• quality of information can vary but can be very
  high
• Traditionally published from a trusted source
  (e.g. governmental body reports, university group
  research papers)
• Non-traditional publication such as wikis, blogs,
  discussion lists

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Finding grey literature
http//www.flickr.com/photos/danardvincente/251214
8775/
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Finding grey literature

• Google etc
• No quality control, so you must evaluate what you
  find
• Google scholar
• Limited to mainly e-publications
• Specialist web gateways
• Selected and annotated resources compiled by
  subject experts, e.g. Intute
• Human processed so coverage smaller but better
  quality results
• See Websites on the Librarys ISVR subject page

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Standards

• British Standards Online
• Full text of most British Standards, including
  ISO and EN standards adopted into British
  Standards
• Searching by keyword or standard number
• IEEE Explore
• Other standards
• See the Library webpagehttp//www.soton.ac.uk/lib
  rary/resources/collections/standards/

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Patents

• Information on how to access full text of
  British, European and US patents and more, see
  the Library webpagehttp//www.soton.ac.uk/librar
  y/resources/collections/patents/

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Secondary sources
http//www.flickr.com/photos/98469445_at_N00/32747167
6/
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Books

• Tend to be secondary research
• Overview of state of the art
• Can contain basic methods which are only alluded
  to in primary research.

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Finding books

• WebCat
• BL Catalogue
• COPAC
• Other universities

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Finding Books WebCat

• University of southampton Librarys
  cataloguehttp//www-lib.soton.ac.uk/
• Does contain books, conference proceedings,
  journal titles, UoS theses
• Does not contain details of individual journal
  articles, conference papers etc.

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Finding Books BL Catalogue

• http//catalogue.bl.uk/
• Every book published in the UK.
• Linked to from the Other catalogues section in
  WebCat
• Seen an interesting item? Checked for it on
  WebCat. Not there? Use Inter-Library Loan (you
  are allowed a max. of 2 ILLs per academic year,
  i.e. August-end July)http//www.soton.ac.uk/libra
  ry/services/ill.html

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Finding Books COPAC

• http//www.copac.ac.uk/
• Combines the online library catalogues of UK
  Irelands largest research libraries.
• Linked to from the Other catalogues section in
  WebCat as CURL OPAC
• Includes WebCat records

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Finding Books Other Universities

• Sconul Vacation Access Scheme
• you have reference (but not borrowing) rights at
  most UK university libraries during their
  vacations.
• See the SCONUL website for more
  informationhttp//www.sconul.ac.uk/using_other_l
  ibraries/vacation.html

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Primary research
http//www.flickr.com/photos/nics_events/223916246
4/
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Journal conference papers

• Articles from peer-reviewed publications (so
  quality is assured)
• Key and up-to-date research, more specific than
  books
• But can also be secondary e.g. review articles,
  journalistic articles

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Paper structure

• Introduction/background
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions/future research

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Finding Journal Conference papers

• The University pays for a number of
  subscription-only databases which allow you to
  search for this material
• The key ones relevant to ISVR are listed on the
  Librarys ISVR subject pages under Databases and
  Indexeshttp//www.soton.ac.uk/library/subjects/i
  svr/databases.html
• If off-campus use
• Institutional Log-in (only for some databases)
• VPN (works for all databases)

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Search Strategies
http//www.flickr.com/photos/thomasclaveirole/4543
94799/
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Anatomy of a literature search
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Search for articles on

• Noise control in aircraft interiors
• Timespan latest 10 years
• Database Web of Science

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Results

• Search statement Noise control AND aircraft
  interiors
• As of 1st Oct May 201230 articles found

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Improving your search strategy

• Identify the concepts of your query
• List alternative phrases and keywords
• Include both narrow and broad terms
• Controlled vocabulary
• Use truncation/wildcards
• Use boolean operators
• Identify any key periods of research
• Identify any key authors in the field

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Noise control inside an aircraft

• Identify the concepts of your query
• Noise control
• Inside
• Aircraft
• List alternative phrases and keywords
• Noise abatement, noise limitation, noise
  cancellation
• Interior, internal, cabin
• Aeroplane, plane

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Terminology and spelling

• British English vs. American English
• Colour or color
• Aeroplane or airplane
• Hyphenation
• X ray, x-ray, xray
• Alternative vocabulary
• Lorries, trucks, HGVs, heavy goods vehicle

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Controlled Vocabulary

• Used by Compendex, Inspec, Medline
• Designated keywords added to describe subjects
  covered by an article
• Also called descriptors, keywords, subject
  headings, thesaurus terms
• Using these makes search results more relevant
• Avoids terms mentioned in passing in the abstract
• Finds material using alternative vocabulary
• Should retrieve all records in a database on
  given topic

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Truncation and wildcards

• Use truncation to find words with a common stem
  or to find singular and plurals
• Aero will find aeroplane, aeroplanes, aerospace,
  aeronautical etc etc
• Use wildcards to replace none, one or more
  letters in the middle of the word
• Wom?n will find woman and women
• Colo?r will find color and colour

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Boolean Logic
a AND b
a OR b
a NOT b
a
a
a
b
b
b
Can be used to join different search terms
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Example search statement

• For ISI Web of Science
• (Noise AND (control OR limitation OR abatement
  OR cancellation))
• AND
• (aircraft OR aeroplane)
• AND
• (interior OR internal OR cabin)

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Results

• As of 1st Oct 201261 articles foundcompared
  to 30 articles when searching using Noise
  control AND aircraft interiors

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Which database?
http//www.flickr.com/photos/shindotv/3835365695/
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Web of Science

• General subject coverage
• No subject headings word search only
• Citation links enable you to track further
  related research from an initial key paper
• On the Web of Knowledge platform

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Inspec

• Physics, electronics, good for acoustics
• Subject index (controlled terms)
• On the Web of Knowledge platform

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Compendex

• On the Engineering Village platform
• General engineering
• Coverage from 1969 onwards
• Subject index and thesaurus

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Compendex
Click on the drop down boxes to access the many
features available
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Compendex
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Medline

• Medical database useful for human factors
• Subject index and thesaurus
• Available on various platforms, EBSCO is the most
  user-friendly

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Other databases

• Biosis
• Biological, good for anatomy (human and animal)
• PsycInfo
• Psychology, good for awareness and perception
  studies
• Transport
• RILM Abstracts of Music
• ESDU (Engineering Sciences Data Unit )

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Finding the full text
http//www.flickr.com/photos/blogwiese/3002486129/
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Track down the references

• From online databases
• Direct links
• TD-Net
• WebCat/search catalogue link

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Track down the references

• Direct links from databases
• Used on Compendex
• may include links to items to which UoS does not
  subscribe
• TDNet symbol
• checks UoS electronic journal holdings
• WebCat button or search library catalogue link
• checks UoS WebCat for print and electronic (N.B.
  sometimes can return no matches because of
  differences in cataloguing an items in the
  database and in our WebCat especially for
  conference material)

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Track down the references

• Seen an interesting item but drawn a blank online
  or in WebCat?
• Inter-Library Loan (you have an allowance of 2
  ILLs per academic year, i.e. August-end
  July)http//www.soton.ac.uk/library/services/ill.
  html

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Recording your references
http//www.flickr.com/photos/reedinglessons/223899
0839/
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Recording references

• It is important to accurately record references
  so others can trace back the resources you used
  in your research.
• Record the full details of the reference
  accurately and neatly
• Record how and when you found it
• N.B. Use the databases download/save/export to
  bibliographic software options if possible to
  minimise errors

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Recording references

• Reference software
• Endnote Web (available via Web of Knowledge)
• Endnote (on networked university machines)
• Can help you keep track! See Bibliographic
  software on the Resources pagehttp//www.soton.a
  c.uk/library/resources/bibliographic/

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Register to use Endnote Web
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Click on My Endnote Web to start
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Endnote Web

• Endnote help and tutorials which you may find
  useful
• http//www.myendnoteweb.com/ Direct link to your
  Endnote Web
• http//www.endnote.com/training/tutorials/enweb2/E
  nglish/EndNote_Web-English/EndNote_Web.html
  Introduction to Endnote Web, including demos of
  formatting bibliographies and editing citations
  with Cite While You Write (CWYW). Takes 4
  minutes and can be used with or without sound.
• http//www.adeptscience.co.uk/training/index.html?
  catonline_seminars Pre-recorded webinars on
  Endnote Endnote Web
• http//www.youtube.com/user/EndNoteTraining
  YouTube channel with video demos for Endnote
  Endnote Web

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Reference style - Harvard

• Standard in text citation is of the form (author,
  date) e.g. (Elliot, 2009)
• Standard reference in the bibliography for a book
  is of the form Author (date), Title, place of
  publication publisheror, for journal
  articlesAuthor (date), Article title, Journal
  Titles, vol (issue no), pages
• For more examples, including book chapters,
  edited books, conference papers, email
  corespondence etc seehttp//www.soton.ac.uk/lib
  rary/infoskills/references/index.htmlharvard

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Further Help

• Contact ISVR Academic Liaison Librarian, Isobel
  Starkemail iastark_at_soton.ac.uk phone [phone]
  2709
• Library ISVR webpageshttp//www.soton.ac.uk/libra
  ry/subjects/isvr/
• Library Subject Enquiry Desk, Level 3Open
  09.00-19.25 Mon-Fri 10.00-16.55 Sat