Class Research Guides and PPts	Reference Resources
Finding Books	Finding Websites
Finding Articles	Need Help? Have Suggestions?

 Finding Books

Use COAST, the CSULB Library Catalog, to find books on Math and Statistics topics. 

Call Numbers and Locations

  Reference Resources

Abstracts of papers presented to the American Mathematical Society REF QA 1 A517
     The University Library retains the latest two years

CRC concise encyclopedia of mathematics REF QA5 W45 2003

Handbook of mathematics and computational science  QA41.S86 1998        

International conversion tables; weights, measures, gauges, currencies, conversion equivalents and factors, technical units, alphabets [and] other useful information  QC61.N3 1965 

McGraw Hill Dictionary of Mathematics REF QA5.M425 2003

Peterson's graduate programs in the physical sciences, mathematics, agricultural sciences, the environment & natural resources REF L901 P445
     Updated annually. 

The Prentice-Hall encyclopedia of mathematics REF QA5 P7
     Includes articles on various aspects of mathematics including tables of symbols, weights and measures, and logarithms; a biographical index; and cross referencing.

 Finding Articles

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 Mathematics / Statistics webpage for quick access to databases useful for math research.

Online databases

• MathSciNet
  -Over 55 years of Mathematical Reviews and Current Mathematical Publications. Produced by the American Mathematical Society.
• Current Index to Statistics 
  -A bibliographic index to publications in statistics and related fields
  -References are drawn from 162 core journals (as of 2003) that are fully indexed, non-core journals from which articles are selected that have statistical content, proceedings and edited books, and other sources. 
• ERIC
  -USE FOR ANY EDUCATION SEARCH
• General Science Abstracts
  -Provides access to citations in the biological, environmental, medical, and physical sciences and related subjects such as botany, biology, food, and mathematics. Indexes articles, reports of meetings, review articles, and book reviews dated 1984 to the present.
  

  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):

To get 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, newspaper search 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/