Physics Department
Gustavus Adolphus College
How To Locate Material for Formal Reports
The library has a homepage which has general information on the library and starting points for carrying out a research project.
General Starting Points
- Try to find an overview such as a review article or read an
appropriate chapter from a textbook.
- Check out any references which are listed in these overviews.
- Make a list of authors who seem to be doing research and/or writing in the field. Then you can try to find articles by that author. Important Note: A person may be listed under different names in different books/journals. For example, David J. Bishop may be listed under Bishop, David J.; Bishop D.J.; Bishop D.; Bishop, David; ...
- Make a List of Important Keywords for your topic
Using the Online Card Catalog (Pals)
The online card catalog system (PALS) can be accessed at the terminals in the library, or from other machines on campus by point your browser at:
http://gustavus.edu/academics/library/
- For Help, type HELP
- To Search for a Keyword anywhere in the Title or Subject
- Use the command: TE keyword1 keyword2 ...
- Example: TE NUCLEAR ENERGY
- If you want to search only in the title, use TT
instead of TE
- To Use a Wildcard (any matching text) in a search, include the # sign.
- Example: TE NUCLEAR REAC# would
find references for both "Nuclear Reaction" and "Nuclear
Reactor"
- To Search for Combinations, include AND, OR
or NOT between keywords or after a search
- Example: TE NUCLEAR NOT WEAPON#
- To limit searches by Format, use FO BO to select only
books, FO SE for Serials, FO AV for AV (Films, Videos, Audio)
- To Search for an Author
- Use the command: BR AU lastname first-initial
- Example: BR AU BISHOP D
- To Limit the results of an existing search to books after 1993, enter: GT 1993
- To Limit an existing search by another keyword, type: AND keyword
Using PALS To Find Journal Articles (for about the past 5-10 years)
- To Select the General Periodicals Index, type: SET FILE GEN ALL
- To Select the Government Documents Index, type: SET FILE GPO
- To Return to the online catalog, type: SET FILE CAT
- You can use all of the same search commands listed above (TE, BR, AND, ...)
- To Limit an Existing Search to a Particular Journal, enter: AND JT journal-title
- Example: To limit to journals such as Science, Scientific American, American Scientist, and any other title with "Scien" in it, enter the command: AND JT SCIEN#
Using Interlibrary Loan
Often in your research, you will need a reference (article or book) which
is not avaiable in our library. We are members of a consortium (MINITEX)
which allows us to share resources of libraries around the upper midwest.
To request a book, fill out a Yellow MINITEX request card and turn it in
at the library. To request an article, fill out a white request card.
It generally takes at least a week to get something through MINITEX,
so start your research early!
Finding Material on the Internet
There are a huge number resources on the internet, particularly
on the World Wide Web. This information is available using a browser
such as Netscape. Unfortunately, there is no central index for
information (such as a Card Catalog) and also the reliability of the
information is sometimes not as good as in printed media (there is no
editor to check the accuracy of the information).
These warnings aside, there are several places to look on the internet
for more information. On most Netscape browsers there is a
NET SEARCH button. This calls up the Netscape Search
Homepage.
The Search Engine I use most often is
SavvySearch
(
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dreiling/smartform.html)
which allows you to search for information from several
other search engines in parallel.
You submit a request such as "Solar Energy" and it will return a list
of any internet resources it can which are related to the topic. NOTE:
Often when it is doing such searches, it will come up with a large
number of resources, many of which are only marginally (if at all)
related to the
search topic.