ECE 401 Overview of Information Resources (UNH Durham) : Home

Get started

• UNH Library places: in Durham, 3 branch libraries and Dimond Library (map; home page for all libraries)
  • Engineering, Math & Computer Science Library - customized resources and services
  • Special services in Dimond Library:
    • Dimond Academic Commons (Library + Writing Center + UNH Academic Technology)
    • Parker Media Lab (Fall 2020: virtual)
  • Other customized science libraries you can use:  Chemistry Library and Physics Library 
  • Spaces where you can study, meet, or take a remote class
• UNH Library resources:
  • To find books, journals, films, music: UNH Library Catalog (quick tutorial) 
    • all physical & online material that you can find by source title, author, keywords
  • To find & articles + books by article or book title, authors, keywords, etc.: UNH Library Search Box
    • Note: this is not in-depth for engineering or science  
  • To find articles (in-depth): choose Engineering databases (for help, contact me) or other databases as appropriate
  • Get remote (off-campus) access to library resources
  • Get general or individualized help with your questions
    • Contact your subject librarian, Chris Loughnane
    • Go to UNH Library's Ask-A-Librarian page
    • When you're at a library, the front desk staff can help you with course reserves, finding & checking out materials, library policies, making requests, and lots more!  If you have a print or scanning question at the engineering and science libraries, the front desk staff can help you; at Dimond, the Academic Technology Service Center can help you.

Go further

• What kind of information do you need?
  • Primary & secondary literature; peer review (refereed journals)
  • Published literature vs. published web pages: Engineering and Technology History WiKi;  IEEE Xplore
• More about searching for books & media: UNH Library Search Box (and beyond) with Advanced Search, below (Advanced Search is available for: the UNH Library Catalog; Books & Media Worldwide; and Firstsearch Worldcat); 
  • Example of a keyword search and subject search for the topic of integrated circuits
  • Example  of a keyword search for words in a title:  schaums linear 
  • Author search, Title search (Halliday, David) and (fundamentals of phys)
  • Course Reserve search with an example (phys 407)
    • Selected reference books
      • Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology (EngrMath Reference  QA76 .R434 2003)
      • Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering  (EngrMath Reference TK9 .W55 1999, vols.1-24)
      • American Men & Women of Science: A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences   (online/print)
• Subject headings... examples: Computers; 
  • Electronic Digital Computers (add: History to either one)
  • Engineers Biography
  • Scientists Biography
  • Last name, first name (ex. Heaviside, Oliver)
• Keywords... examples: Computers;
  • "Electronic Digital Computers" (what happens if you add History?)
  • Heaviside Oliver       Note:  Keywords can be in any order, but authors and subjects that are people should be typed in Lastname, Firstname or Lastname, First-initial: Heavidside, O..
• Specialized databases on branch library website (ex. Engineering, Math & CS Library)
• All Library Databases
  • Searching for articles in Applied Science & Technology Abstracts (Example)
  • Comparison of databases (below)
  • Searching for journals (print and electronic): online catalog, A - Z list of electronic journals, JSTOR (Example)
  • Tips and logic:
    •  computer operating system -- can be interpreted as: computer AND operating AND system
      "computer operating system" -- is usually interpreted as a phrase (the words adjacent to each other and in order, just as you input them)
       computer and "operating system" -- this will be interpreted as the phrase operating system with the word computer somewhere in the entry.
    • For any ending, use the wildcard * (asterisk), example:  vehic*  [vehicle, vehicles, vehicular]
    • AND, OR, NOT -- it's Boolean logic  (Smile! see tip sheet)
  • Managing bibliographies: Zotero
    • Citation style for IEEE Transactions, Journals, and Letters: IEEE Citation Reference
• Searching the Web:  evaluate, compare, and cite your sources
  • Google vs. Google Scholar (for more info, see Inside Search-Google)
• Searching for images:  This is a specialty search that most systems do not support, although some show thumbnails so you can tell if an image is included.  Google Images and ScienceDirect's search of Elsevier scholarly journals are two resources.  Flipping through books or encyclopedias in the library works, too!
• InterLibrary Loan
• Steps in locating literature (below)
• What do you really do: Flowchart  (below)
• If we don't have it
• Questions?

• Inspec  (database)  81,426
• Compendex  (database)  79,073
• IEEE Xplore (IEEE articles+) 29,538
• Applied Science & Technology (database)  9,899
• Web of Science  (database)  11,449
• Dissertation Abstracts  (database)  18,800
• Access Science  (encyclopedia)  143
• Amazon (books)  41,503
• Google  (web pages)  5,630,000
• Google Scholar (articles) 445,000
• ScienceDirect (Reed Elsevier articles)  62,294
• ScienceDirect image search (Reed Elsevier articles)  11,390
• ACM Digital Library  (ACM articles) 12,637
• ACM Guide to Computing Literature (ACM+major sources) 31,370
• JSTOR (articles)  2,474

For other engineering databases, see the master list of all UNH databases .