Introduction to Geoscience Research Databases

1
Introduction to Geoscience Research Databases

• Steven A. Gillis, MLIS
• sgillis_at_bama.ua.edu

2
GeoRef What is it?

• GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the
  geosciences and continues to grow by more than
  80,000 references a year (90,000 planned for
  2006). The database contains over 2.6 million
  references to geoscience journal articles, books,
  maps, conference papers, reports and theses

3
GeoRef What is it?

• Established by the American Geological Institute
  in 1966
• Covers the geology of North America from 1785 to
  the present and the geology of the rest of the
  world from 1933 to the present

4
GeoRef is a Citation Database

• Each month between 4,000 and 7,000 new references
  are added to the database
• The American Geological Institute, owner and
  producer of GeoRef, licenses the database to
  distributors and user organizations

5
Your Mileage May Vary

• Our access is through OVID
• GeoRef through OVID
• Other providers include
• EBSCO Publishing
• Community of Science
• Dialog
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
• Many more

6
Do What Now?

• Getting to GeoRef
• We access GeoRef through the University of
  Alabama Libraries Databases page
• WWW.LIB.UA.EDU/DATABASES

7
G
8
Select the Database Name
9
The Basic Search Screen
10
The Advanced Search Screen
Boolean Operators
11
Searchable Fields
12
Natural Language
13
Requiring a URL can get you to the text, but can
limit your results!
14
Breaking up the Language with Near
Descriptors are LINKS!
15
(No Transcript)
16
Watch out for limits!
Descriptor
17
Combining these searches
31 out of 799
18
What Word Works? Find out with the Thesaurus Tab
19
Then Search!
Pick and Choose!
20
Almost 3500 records!
OR can return a lot of hits!
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
Click to see the results
24
58 Records
25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
(No Transcript)
28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
(No Transcript)
31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
Print, Email, Save
37
(No Transcript)
38
Common Citation Fields
39
(No Transcript)
40
www.agiweb.org/georef/about/subjects.html
41
ISI Web of Science

• What is it?
• It is an electronic compilation of the three
  major citation indexes
• It allows us to take one article and track its
  influence in the world of scholarly publishing
• It can allow us to create a web of who is
  citing who, identify key publications for a
  topic, or create an extremely thorough set on a
  subject

42
(No Transcript)
43
The General Search
44
(No Transcript)
45
(No Transcript)
46
List of Geographic terms
47
Only 3 results for Alabama Andy?
48
Added Hawaii
49
(No Transcript)
50
Over 500 Hits
Urology?
51
11 Results
52
Times Cited
53
(No Transcript)
54
(No Transcript)
55
(No Transcript)
56
(No Transcript)
57
Cited Reference Search
Abbreviations
58
(No Transcript)
59
ControlF
60
(No Transcript)
61
Unlinked Citations
62
(No Transcript)
63
(No Transcript)
64
(No Transcript)
65
(No Transcript)
66
(No Transcript)
67
(No Transcript)
68
(No Transcript)
69
Thank you! Any Questions?