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Resources in Environmental Systems:
How to Do Research in 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?
Basic/Multidisciplinary
Energy, Environment & Society
International Development Technology
Environmental Resources Engineering
Geology
Mathematical Modeling
Full Text Databases
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?

HSU Library Catalog - 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 1998, U.S. government documents are 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 Help Contents. The default screen is for the Basic Search. You may conduct more complex searches using the Advanced Search option.
  • If you are not looking for a particular book or if you do not know the author or title, you must look by subject. The best way to search for a subject is by doing a keyword search.   Brainstorm and use synonyms to describe your topic.  Then when you find one really good book on your topic, you can look at the Subject(s) portion of the record for that book and use the link(s) to find other books on the same subject.
 
  • If you browse the shelves around the book you want, you may find other books of interest.  This is because the Library of Congress classification system used in HSU Library is based on the subject of the book.
 
  • Reference Materials can provide you with background information, major theories or researchers, and definitions of key terms. There are print and electronic reference sources in HSU Library.  Print and selected electronic reference materials are listed in the HSU Library Catalog and may be located by adding terms such as encyclopedia?, director?, dictionar?, etc. to your search. You might also try searching for electronic and print reference materials by choosing Reference Collection (including Eref) from the pull-down Optional Limits menu (Title and Keyword Searches Only).
 
  • Books tend to treat a subject in depth but are generally not the most current source of information, especially in the rapidly changing areas of science and technology.
 
  • Master's theses done at HSU may be found by using the HSU Theses search option. You may use the pull-down menu to browse by department/degree area and/or the optional search box to search for keyword(s), author, year, subject, title, etc.

    See also Theses and Dissertations with an Emphasis on Natural Resources for more information on finding theses in the HSU Library. Two print copies of all HSU theses are housed in the HSU Library. Since 2005, electronic copies of HSU theses have been added to Humboldt Digital Scholar, with links to the full text from the HSU Library Catalog.

  • Journals (aka periodicals) are usually the most current sources of research information and may appear in print and/or electronic formats. However, journal articles are not indexed in the HSU Library Catalog. You must use indexes/abstracts/databases to find articles on your topic.

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How do I find articles in journals on my topic?

Articles in journals may be found by using Indexes/Abstracts/Databases.

PLEASE NOTE: Also see International Development Research Guide by HSU Librarian Robert Sathrum for a more extensive list of resources that focus on all aspects of international development, including sustainable development, appropriate technology and women in development.

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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 Science Citation Index (abstract Q 1 S34 1969-1997) or 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 Index portion of Science Citation Index  or 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 during the time frame of the index, it will appear in the Citation Index along with a listing of the current authors citing it. 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. More detail may be found in Cited Reference Searching: An Introduction or ask for assistance at the Information Desk (hours).

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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.

  • ACM Digital Library - The database of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) publications has fulltext of every article ever published by ACM. You may sign up to receive the table of contents via email as new issues become available.
  • ACS Publications - This database contains the full text of articles in 37 journals published by the American Chemical Society.  You can sign up for free email alerts which are of two types: (1)  ASAP  (As Soon As Publishable) Alerts of articles posted to the web before being assigned to an issue; and (2) Table of Contents Alerts sent when the complete issue is posted on the web.
  • Blackwell Synergy Premium Journals - You may sign up to be notified of journal tables of contents, new articles by topic or author, OnlineEarly and OnlineAccepted articles published ahead of the journal issue, and alerts when a selected article is cited. All of these notifications are available as RSS newsfeeds or as e-mail alerts
  • CSA Alerts - Receive weekly notification of new research indexed in the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts, BioOne, Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management or GeoRef databases. To set up your profile, click on the Alerts link in the upper right side of the screen.
  • Energy Citations Database (ECD) - Sign up to receive weekly alerts in topic(s) of interest via email.
  • National Academies Press - Sign up to receive e-mail notices of new titles published in subject categories that interest you as they are released.
  • Oxford Journals - Use the My Account link to set up keyword, author, or table of contents alerts for individual Oxford journals. You may also set up a citation alert to be notified when a specific article has been cited by another author.
  • ScienceDirect - Elsevier's full text database of over 1800 journals in 24 fields of study has three types of alerts: (1) Search Alerts of articles added that match a saved search strategy;   (2) New Issue Alerts which send tables of contents as issues are published; and (3) Citation Alerts which send a notice when new articles that cite a specific article of interest are added to the database.
  • SpringerLink - Complete contents of more than 1100 journals published by Springer and Kluwer in subjects including science, technology, humanities, and law. You can sign up for table of contents alerts and/or keyword search alerts to keep up in your field of interest.
  • Wiley Interscience - Wiley's full text database of 363 journals has a Contents Alerting service which sends tables of contents as issues are published. 
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How do I find out if the Library has the item I need?

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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/Pharos Interlibrary Loan Service.

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A final caveat:

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:

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