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Resources in Environmental Systems:
How to Do Research in the HSU Library

Before beginning your research project, it is recommended that you think about how comprehensive your research must be, how current your sources of information need to be, and your intended audience's level of expertise. Then define your research topic as specifically as possible and don't be afraid to refine your topic as you learn more about it. Suggested guidelines for doing library research follow and may be adapted to fit your needs.


Table of Contents
How do I find out if the Library has books and theses on my topic?
How do I find articles in journals on my topic?
Another way to do research -- Citation Searching!!!
Keeping Current
How do I find out if the Library has the item I need?
What if the Library doesn't have the item I need?
A final caveat: Evaluate what you find!

How do I find out if the Library has books and theses on my topic?


The HSU Library Catalog is the guide to books, periodicals, videos, compact discs, DVDs, etc. in the HSU Library. Most government documents are not included in the library catalog.  Beginning in March 1998, U.S. government documents are included in the library catalog.  California state documents published after mid-1999 are also in the library catalog. For information on how to search HSU Library Catalog, see HSU Library Catalog: Help Contents. The default screen is for the Basic Search. You may conduct more complex searches using the Advanced Search option.

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How do I find articles in journals on my topic?


Articles in journals may be found by using Databases that index the literature related to environmental systems. Most of these databases (or indexes) also provide summaries (abstracts) of the articles as well as links to the full text of the article. For this reason, databases may also be referred to as Indexes/Abstracts.

The databases most appropriate for research in environmental systems may be found at Articles & Databases: Environmental Systems.

In addition to journal articles, indexes/abstracts may also index articles/reports published in conference proceedings, government documents, technical reports, dissertations, and other sources. Indexes/abstracts vary in scope, depth and breadth of subject coverage. The Search Strategy Worksheet gives a step-by-step description of how to develop your search. There are also search strategy guides tailored to science: Identifying Concepts and Generating Search Terms and AND, OR, NOT (Boolean Operators).

Most electronic indexes/abstracts/databases are available only to HSU faculty, students and staff. To access them from off-campus, see HSU Library - Off Campus Access to Databases

In addition to Articles & Databases: Environmental Systems, there are databases that only contain the full text of journals or books. These may be of use depending on your research topic.

Full Text Databases - These are only a few of the databases that contain full text of journal articles or books.

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Another way to do research -- Citation Searching!!


NOTE: Due to severe budget constraints, only HSU graduate students and faculty may directly access the citation index databases, SciSearch and Social SciSearch. Undergraduate students may ask for assistance at the Information Desk (hours) if they need to use SciSearch or Social SciSearch. Google Scholar may also be useful when searching citations - please see How to Use Google Scholar and the HSU Library. More sources may be found in the Citation Searching section of Searching the Scientific Literature.

If you know of a particularly relevant or "classic" article on your topic, you may use Scisearch (1974 to date) to locate more recent articles which cite that relevant article. The principle here is that the citing article is on a subject closely related to that of the earlier article. Use the Citation Searching section of Scisearch to look up the author of the highly relevant or "classic" article. If any of the author's works have been cited or listed in the bibliography of works published since 1974, a list of titles of articles will appear. This is a way to search the literature forward from an earlier article to the present time as opposed to the more familiar practice of finding a recent article and following its bibliography or list of citations backward in time.

In order to keep our costs down, we ask that you do not click on the title to retrieve the entire record unless you know it is something you really want as it costs several dollars to display each record. Instead we recommend that you search for the title of the article using Google Scholar or Google.

More detail on citation searching may be found in Cited Reference Searching: An Introduction or ask for assistance at the Information Desk (hours).

Social SciSearch (1974-) might be useful for topics related to developing countries.

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Keeping Current


Listed below are several databases that will send you the table of contents when a new issue of a key journal is available.  Some of these databases will also run your stored search strategy periodically and send you any new references that result from the search. Also see Current Awareness in the Sciences for more ways to keep current.

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How do I find out if the Library has the item I need?


Once you have a list of citations or references on the topic you are researching, you must determine if HSU Library has the article, book, report or document cited. While you are searching a database, click on the icon next to each citation and a link to full text availability of that article or book will appear.

If there is no icon, see if there is another link to full text. If there is no link to full text, check the HSU Library Catalog for books, reports, dissertations, and the complete titles of periodicals (journals, magazines) containing articles of interest. You should also use the Journal and Newspaper Finder, a searchable guide to the more than 15,000 journals, magazines, newspapers and other serials accessible online (fulltext) as well as to the 13,000 print periodicals and serials in HSU Library. The Journal and Newspaper Finder has been enhanced with common periodical abbreviations. You can search an abbreviation, e.g., jacs, and retrieve Journal of the American Chemical Society.

If you have a full reference to an article that includes at least the year, volume, issue and starting pages of your article, you may use the Citation Linker to locate it if the Journal and Newspaper Finder indicates that the full text of the journal is available in electronic format for the date(s) of interest.

Indexes and abstracts often use abbreviations in their citations which you *may* need to decipher. Many indexes and abstracts publish separate lists of the abbreviations used. Consult a reference librarian at the Library's Information Desk ( hours ) to locate an appropriate list of abbreviations or use the reference book Periodical Title Abbreviations: by abbreviation (ref Z 6945 A2 P47) located in the Reference collection on the first floor. You may also use All That JAS: Journal Abbreviation Sources and other resources listed on Finding Periodical Title Abbreviations to locate abbreviations and their full titles. Do not guess at what abbreviations mean!

Remember that most government documents prior to 1998 are not listed in HSU Library Catalog. If you wish to find a government document, consult the guides: Finding Federal Documents and Finding California State Documents. You may also ask a reference librarian for assistance at the Reference Desk on the first floor (hours) or near the Humboldt Room, room 308 (hours).

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What if the Library doesn't have the item I need?


If the Library does not have the book, report, document, article, etc. which you need, you may request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). See Interlibrary Loan Frequently Asked Questions for more information.  Requests may be placed by logging on to the Interlibrary Loan System. There are also links to the ILL System from Image of SFX button pages when the HSU Library doesn't have full text. This process can take as long as TWO WEEKS for books and ONE WEEK for articles so it is a good idea to begin your research early.

Books available in other CSU libraries may be requested using the CSU Catalog Interlibrary Loan Service. Simply click on the "Request this item" button.

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A final caveat: Evaluate what you find!


You must critically evaluate the resources found online (as well as in the Library) by asking yourself the following questions:

More detailed information on how to evaluate resources may be found in the following:

Be especially careful when surfing the Web!!  The following references are especially helpful and tell you what to look for (and look out for):

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