INFORMATION LITERACY

FOR MOS STUDENTS

March 4, 2009Marja Maclaine Pont, information specialist WUR

Agenda

March 4: room C313:introduction PC rooms 421 and 425, enter Blackboard and

check if you have access to ECS 65100_2008_4

March 11: discuss your search strategy with an information

specialist

For the rest of the schedule: see Blackboard

Digital Library

http://library.wur.nl/desktop The starting point for all library links, e.g.

portals, news, calender, user information and services, FAQs, etc.

What and Where: Examples

Looking for: Journal articles Books, reports, etc. News Institute information Encyclopedias,

dictionaries

Search in: Bibliographies Catalogues Newspapers, WWW WWW Catalogue/ WWW

The Library vs. The Web

Library Selection Organized Permanent Free access Comprehensive

Web No selection Less organized Not permanent Access ??? Not comprehensive

Wageningen UR Catalogue

Entrance to all resources we possess or subscribe to: books, reports, journals, (bibliographic) databases, encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries, etc.

Also a limited number of websites and other free sources are added

No journal articles, book chapters, papers Better disclosure by means of a thesaurus

Catalogue search examples

Boolean operators: apples AND/OR/NOT pears Truncation: * for zero to infinite characters, ? for 1 character Comma’s represent Boolean OR, e.g. apples, pears Searching for keyword pepper or peper (bilinguality) Keywords, including broader terms, or narrower terms or

related terms (spices) Categories: broad subjects “Our ecological footprint”: click on author

Wageningen Yield: WaY

http://library.wur.nl/way Publications by WUR staff Information on publishing and copyright Up-to-date list of publications, using a list

wizard

E-BOOKS

Via the Digital Library, Portals, E-books e.g.: Springer: 2005-2008 and all available books from

before 2005; nearly 12,000 titles CAB: 1999-2008, approx. 182 titles Elsevier (Agric. and Biol. Sci + Biochem + Gen. and

Mol. Biol.): 1995-2006, approx. 544 titles Etc.

E-JOURNALS

You can find them in two ways: Via the catalogue: document type: journal,

electronic only Via the Digital Library, Search, e-journals A-Z Approx. 10,100 titles

PORTALS

Starting pages for scientific literature in the research fields of WUR

Made by the information specialists of WUR One portal for each subject (WU Department)

and one general portal They list the main bibliographies, textbooks,

core journals, and reference works You can find them via the Digital Library, Portals

METASEARCH

Search in several bibliographies in one go

Several options in each subject-oriented portal

Not possible to use specific command language, truncation signs, field names

Alerts

In our catalogue: (first: register in My Library): for subject searches or for ToC alerts (e.g. Current Issues in Tourism), as an email alert

Via the publisher: e.g. www3.interscience.wiley.com: Acta Zoologica: as a email alert, or as an RSS feed

In our portals: for new publications from VLAG, A&F and RIKILT: library.wur.nl/desktop/portals/afs

In WaY: library.wur.nl/way In WDA: library.wur.nl/wda

More alerts

RSS feeds for subject categories in our catalogue: library.wur.nl/WebQuery/catalog/rss?selectie= (fill in a subject category)

In Web of Science (WoS) (first: register): select: WoS, perform your search, go to: Search History, create an email alert

In Scopus (first register): as an email alert or as an RSS feed

Via OvidSP (first register): as an email alert or as an RSS feed; in 1 or more databases, perform your search, go to: Search History, login in Saved searches/alerts, choose: Save Search history

What you have to do

Study the Blackboard modules, see: edu2.web.wur.nl, if you have not yet a WUR account, please work together with a colleague

You can study most of the modules also via: library.wur.nl/desktop/services/infolit (the quizzes are not available)

Do the quizzes to test your knowledge Visit a real library, and make the exercises (they are

available at the Desk of the Forum Library, both in Dutch and in English), hand the exercises over to the Library personnel

Write an assignment on the subject of your choice, together with one or two colleagues; the information on how to write it can be found in BB; upload the document via Assignments, Assignment Literature Search

Exam on Thursday April 23, 2009.

Blackboard Module 4a: Search Strategy

finding the focus defining type and amount of material:

limitation selection of information sources: where

to look doing a good search

Climate change

Global warming

Greenhouse effect

Climatic change

Kyoto

Research:

Publication of results

The optimal database:

contains all relevant publications links to the full text, if WUR has a subscription is updated frequently has good search facilities can be searched from anywhere ………………………………

http://scholar.google.com/

“biogas and manure” in TI, 2008: 12 hits

Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Scopus

WoS

Bibliographic

databases

“biogas and manure” in ti and py=2008

WoS Scopus GSTotal number 6 9 12Unique hits 0 2a)

6b)

a) 1 from Austr.J.Exper.Agric.; 1 from Transact. Chin.Soc.Agric.Engin.

b) 3 citations, 1 FAO/Agris report, 1 thesis, 1 article from 2009

Main features of GS, WoS, Scopus

GS WoS Scopus

disciplines all all all

type of work all articles+ articles+

ft if available within WUR yes* yes*

updated + + +

search fac. - + +

access + +* +*

* Via My Library

How to use GS, WoS, Scopus

Use GS for:- quick searches

Use WoS/ Scopus for:- detailed searches- citation information- finding recent articles (articles in press)

Bibliographic databases

All disciplines• Scopus• CC, CCC• Web of Science• Google Scholar

Specific topics• CAB-Abstracts• Biological Abstracts• FSTA• Medline/ PubMed• SciFinder on the Web• ……………..

Overlap AdditionalDifferent search platforms

Use several databases

Books

Journals

Maps

Reports, theses, etc.

WoS

Scopus

CAB

BA

ASFA

LSW

SocIndex

PsycInfoPsycInfo

Google Scholar

Improving your search

To narrow: more specific terms, less truncation, more concepts….

To broaden: more (general) terms, more truncation, less concepts …………

Build on what you have found:• More or better terms (thesaurus!)• Key authors/ groups• References (citation search)

WoS

Scopus

CAB

BA

ASFA

LSW

SocIndex

PsycInfoPsycInfo

Google Scholar

Portals

MetaSearch

Which databases?

The conclusion: find relevant

results, without irrelevant ones.

© Wageningen UR