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INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SEARCHING

INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SEARCHING. What is a database? Types Providers ETH- Bibliothek Access to databases Database information SFX functionality Search strategies Search rules Contact. TYPES OF DATABASES . A database contains:

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INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SEARCHING

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  1. INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SEARCHING • What is a database? • Types • Providers • ETH-Bibliothek • Access to databases • Database information • SFX functionality • Search strategies • Search rules • Contact

  2. TYPES OF DATABASES • A database contains: • Primary information (= direct “condensed” information) • Fact databases (statistical, numerical, lexical datasets) • Superweb (Swiss statistics) • Beilstein, Gmelin (chemical data and formulae) • Kompass, LexisNexis (market and company information) • Publicus (Swiss yearbook of public life) • Journal Citation Report JCR (citation data on journals, statistics) • Secondary information (= metadata, bibliographic information) • Subject bibliographies Web of Science, Agricola, Agris, GeoREF, Biotechnology Abstracts, FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts), Medline ®, Transport, SciFinder and many more • Library and network catalogues NEBIS, KVK, WorldCat • Book retailers' directories VLB, Global books in print • Primary and secondary information • Full-text databases LexisNexis Press, reference works, encyclopaedias, JSTOR (digital journal archive) • Image databases, multimedia databases…. and all kinds of combinations! • Sources: http://is.uni-sb.de/diskussion/reader/it/it2/ , http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachdatenbank (12.04.2010)

  3. PROVIDERS OF DATABASES • Institute for Scientific Information – Web of Knowledge (ISI Thomson-Reuters) • Web of Science with Conference Proc. and Chemical Databases, JCR, BIOSIS, Previews, DerwentInnovations Index (patents), INSPEC • SciVerse SCOPUS (Elsevier) • multidisciplinary database • OVID SP • Agris, Agricola, CAB Abstracts, FSTA, GeoRef, Geobase, OVID Medline, PSYNDEX, Transport, etc.

  4. ETH-BIBLIOTHEK: ACCESS TO DATABASES • Searching the Knowledge Portal / the NEBIS rechercheby database title • Access by subject • Access by alphabetical list

  5. DATABASE INFORMATION

  6. SFX FUNCTIONALITY • Context-sensitive service, enabling you to accessthe document you require (possible from almost all DBs) • Link to the full text • Link to the library catalogue • Link to the table of contents of a journal • Link to an interlibrary loan service (ILL)

  7. SEARCH STRATEGIES • Formulate the search query (type of information, topic) • Subject: general overview ↔ selectedinformation? • Initial (term) search in Wikipedia, encyclopaedias, including reference works • Advanced search in subject databases • Synonyms, truncation, links, phrase search, alternative spellings, singular/plural forms, time coverage, etc. • The more precise the query, the more accurate the hits but, equally, the more often documents fall through the net • Document and save your search history!

  8. SEARCH RULES I: BOOLEAN OPERATORS, PHRASE SEARCH • AND Switzerland AND tourism - both terms must occur in the document (intersection) • OR bicycle OR bike - at least one of the terms must occur in the document (union) • NOT Asia NOT India - the document contains the first term but excludes the second (subset) • SAME Clinton SAME Obama - both terms must occur within the same sentence • NEAR climate NEAR/3 change – between both terms are zero to three other words • ( ) Search order precedence: operators are weighted differently depending on the database, e.g. AND > OR > NOT – or the other way round! • This weighting can be changed using brackets. Tip: Consult the Help pages! • " " "hybrid car" - keeps terms together, or searches for them in the document in that exact order (phrase search)

  9. SEARCH RULES II: TRUNCATION / WILDCARDS Tipp: Consult the Help pages! - often there is a context-specific Help function available (OVID SP, Web of Science, Scopus)

  10. CONTACT ETH-Bibliothek – GrüneBibliothek Manuela Schneider Universitätstr. 16 8092 Zurich manuela.schneider@library.ethz.ch ETH-Bibliothek - Information Rämistr. 101 8092 Zurich info@library.ethz.ch October 2012

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