Information on Faculty Services supporting Instruction and Research

http://www.csulb.edu/~coutten/csulbsciblog.html

Class Research Guides

View your Library Instruction Sessions Here:

Chemistry 420 Spring 2007

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Finding Books

Use COAST, the CSULB Library Catalog, to find books on Chemistry and Biochemistry topics.

For hints on finding books in the library using their call number try this website.

Call Numbers and Locations

Reference Resources

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology 4th ed. NY: Wiley. Ref TP9 E685 1991

Step One

The first step in finding scholarly/ peer reviewed articles for research is to use a database or index to find citations (including titles) of articles that are on your topic. Online databases are listings of articles published in a particular set of journals. Paper indexes also list articles by subject and title and are updated with new printings periodically.
Keep in mind that for academic research you want to stick with scholarly articles published in journals like Advances in Nursing Science as opposed to news type articles in magazines like Newsweek. Some databases will even allow you to limit your search to scholarly articles, also called peer-reviewed, juried, or refereed articles, by checking a box.

Visit the Finding Articles by Topic Chemistry/Biochemistry webpage for quick access to the following databases as well as others useful for chemistry research.

Online databases

• General Science Abstracts
  -Over 160 journals covered from 1984 to present
  -Covers anthropology, astronomy, biology, computers, earth sciences, medicine and health, pollution
  -CINAHL indexes journals, books, pamphlets, audiovisuals, software, research instruments, dissertations and others
• Science Direct
  -covering most of the journals published by Elsevier Science, its subsidiaries, and some other scholarly publishers
  -Full text and full page images are provided for most of these journals
• ACS Web Editions
  -Searchable Full-text of all years of 30 journals published by the American Chemical Society
• SciFinder Scholar
  -The largest database of chemistry literature and Chemical Abstracts.
  -Available to CSULB, students, and staff on all thecomputers on the 1st floor of the library under Start, Programs, SciFinder Scholar.

Print Indexes
(Use for finding older articles not covered in the online databases.)

Chemical Abstracts(1907-1993)Room 322: QD1 A51

Index Medicus Room 407 R129 .I46

Step Two

After you have found citations for articles that seem relevant to your topic, you need to access the articles themselves. You can decide if they are relevant (articles you want) by looking at titles and abstracts (short summaries of the articles) in the database citation.

Getting the article (Follow these steps until you have the article in hand):

Toget the article electronically:

Some articles will be available in full-text or PDF format by simply clicking a link right in the database.

If there is no direct link,look for an link which searches for the article in any database subscribed to by CSULB and sometimes the COAST library catalog as well to let you know if CSULB has access to the article anywhere.

If SFX doesn't find the article, you should still try to find the journal in COAST on your own. Search using the Journal Title, not the article title. Make sure you know which year, volume, and number journal you need.

If it is available electronically online, you should be able to click a link and then either print the article or e-mail it to yourself.

If the journal is not available electronically, get the article in paper:

Try a COAST Title of journal, magazine, newspapersearch using the journal title, not the article title, to see if CSULB has the journal in paper copy.

If it is available in paper form at CSULB you will have to come to the library to photocopy it. Make sure you write down the ENTIRE citation (author, title, journal title, volume, number, year, pages) from the database and the call number from COAST.

If it is not available electronically or at CSULB you can still request the article through Interlibrary Loan. This gets the article from another library either in paper or electronically and usually takes 7-10 days. So be sure to start your research early! If you are in a hurry, you can check other library's catalogs and possibly go to that library to get the article.

Need help deciphering journal title abbreviations?

• JAKE (Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment)
  http://jake.openly.com/

Need Help?

Contact Cathy Outten, Chemistry Librarian

• visit the reference desk on the first floor of the library,
• try 24/7 chat with a librarian, or
• set up an appointment with Cathy.

This page created and maintained by Cathy Outten, Chemistry & Biochemistry Librarian
University Library, California State University, Long Beach