1. BearCat: the library catalog: to find books, pamphlets, etc. in the main library collection.

Many search modes are available. Search by Author keyword for books by a particular author. A Title keyword search looks for word(s) found anywhere in the book titles (and contents notes, if included on the record.) A Subject keyword searches Library of Congress subject headings having the word(s) you enter. "Keyword anywhere" is the broadest search.

Books dealing with many persons will be listed in the catalog under broader subjects, such as:

• CHEMISTS
• SCIENTISTS--BIOGRAPHY
• SCIENTISTS--GREAT BRITAIN--BIOGRAPHY
• WOMEN SCIENTISTS, etc.

You can also try an "Advanced Keyword Search" for "biography", AND word fragments such as "scien*" or "chem*", etc. to see lists of biographies of scientists, chemists, etc.

This leads to titles such as:

• Lives in Science (Q 141.S37)
• Great Scientific Experiments (Q 175.H3254 1983)
• American Women of Science (Q 130.Y6)
• Stories from Science (Juv E 185.96.H82)
• Makers of the Modern World (CT 119.U5)

2. Also: for more about the science rather than about the people try

• Ref Q 121.M3. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology
• Ref QD 5.V37 1984. Encyclopedia of Chemistry
• General encyclopedias such as Britannica and Americana at Ref AE

3. Several works are very useful for concise scientific and general biography - most are found in Reference.

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography. (Ref Q 141.D5 1981) This is the best collective source. There are also two supplements.
• American National Biography. (Ref CT 213 .A68 1999)
• Dictionary of National Biography. (U.K.) (Ref DA 28 .D48)
• Current Biography. (Ref CT 100.C8) Short biographies of living persons. Use the cumulated index for the years 1940-1985. Persons covered are found alphabetically by their name in the vol. for the year listed in the index.
• Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, 1901-1992. (Ref QD 21.N63 1993) brief biogs.,with bibliographies
• McGraw-Hill Modern Men of Science. (Ref Q 141.M15) 1966. 2 vols.
• The Harper Encyclopedia of Science. (Ref Q 123.H26) - has short entries on persons.
• Women of Mathematics. (Ref QA 28.W66 1987)
• Notable American Women, 1607-1950. (Ref CT 3260.N57) vol. III has an index by profession.
• American Women in Science. (Ref Q 141.B25 1994)
• Notable Women in the Physical Sciences : a biographical dictionary. (Ref Q 141 .N734 1997)
• Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th century. (Q 141 .D535 1996)
• Nobel Prize Women in Science. (Q 141 .B42 1993)
• A Treasury of World Science. (Ref Q 111.R78) 1962. This has excerpts from the writings of famous scientists.

4. The indexes listed below can be used to find recent newspaper and magazine articles

• On the library web site - under "Finding Articles / General Search"
  • Academic Search Premier- an index to recent periodical articles - with the entire article online in some cases.
  • EBSCO MasterFile Premier
• On the library web site - from the full list of databases
  • JSTOR - a full-text collection of many older periodicals.
• In Paper in the Reference Area of Crumb Library
  • The New York Times Obituaries Index. (Ref CT 213.N47) - an index to obituaries in this newspaper from 1858 to 1978
  • Biography Index. (Ref CT 100 .B5) - an index to magazine articles and books about people.

I take to class examples of some of the biographical sources, esp. the Dict. of Scientific Biography.

The library skills and research concepts that we want to impart in GEV 110 are:

Terminology:

1) bibliographic citation or reference
2) magazine / journal / periodical
3) classification system
4) index ; hierarchical subject index
5) entry

Concepts and attitudes about the research process

• An appreciation of the need to master the literature search process
• A picture of the variety of information sources
• A feeling of competence and a diminution of anxiety about using library resources
• An understanding of some concepts of information organization as practiced in libraries; such as
  • subject access through hierarchical subject headings
  • organization of materials with classification systems
  • reference books as intermediary sources for accessing bibliographic and substantive knowledge
• An understanding of the logical relationships among varieties of publications, either as part of search strategy, publication sequence, or within a model of the writing/researching process

The objectives for the library component of GEV 110 are:

• To find a title in the online catalog and on the shelf, using Library of Congress call numbers
• To use the LC classification to locate reference books in a specified field of knowledge
• To interpret a citation to a periodical article, and to determine whether it is available in the library
• To use the hierarchical, alphabetical subject arrangements found in periodical indexes (and the subject thesaurus, if one exists, to help with search vocabulary) to find articles on an assigned or chosen topic
• To use similar hierarchical arrangements of subject headings in the online catalog and other major reference tools
• To use computerized indexes
• To work a subject into a well-defined topic for research, using writing techniques, preliminary literature searching, and consultation with the course instructor

Not all these objectives may be met in every course, but this gives some guidance in what we would like to see achieved.

For the second class it may be useful to distribute the sheet on "Finding Periodical Articles", with the suggestion that students use it when looking for articles by way of the indexes noted in the other hand-out.

Crumb Library Guide. Sciences # 1 DT 9/2003 (trithadi@potsdam.edu) (x3311)