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Soil and Crop Sciences

Introduction to Research Webpage
SC430

Introduction to Morgan Library:

How to find BOOKS in Morgan Library:(also look for government documents)

  • SAGE search for books or titles of journals (Does the library own the book with the title: fish hatchery management?)

    • Title or author search is good if you know the exact title and the exact author's name
    • The web of life : a new scientific understanding of living systems by Fritjof Capra.

    • Word search is good if you have a topic, keyword, or if you aren't sure of the title
    • I am looking for a book Environmental conditions and aspen regeneration failure / by W.R. Jacobi
    • I need to find books on yellow starthistle
    • I need to find a list of the thesis papers written by CSU students from 1999-present

    • Use the journal title or title search to locate the title of a journal (NOT the articles in the journal--use databases to find journal articles)
    • Does the library own the journal Bioscience? example

  • Prospector searches CU-Boulder, Univ. of Denver, other libraries in this area. Good for books, not articles.

  • What if I need a book or journal article or conference proceeding or dissertation and the library doesn't have it? Order from Interlibrary Loan ILL. It can take several days for an article, about two weeks for a book. Sign up for webview, get your articles via the web!

  • Help, I need a good dictionary about entomology? Ask at the Information Desk, the reference collection has good encyclopedias, overviews to classification, etc. Do a word search in SAGE: dictionary and entomology then limit to location: reference.

  • A book chapter can give you an overview on the topic, frame some of the issues, give you a starting point to expand your research.

How to find BOOKS or DISSERTATIONS not in Morgan Library:

How to find TITLES OF JOURNALS in Morgan Library:

  • SAGE search for books or titles of journals (NOT articles in the journal--use DATABASES to find articles)
  • Does the library own the journal Bioscience? example

How to find GENERAL JOURNAL ARTICLES or NEWSPAPER ARTICLES:

How to find SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ARTICLES on a topic, subject, or by an author

Use Databases to search, for journal articles on your topic or subject. The library has over 200 databases, this is a "short list" of starting points. Set up your home computer to search databases at home/off-campus. Do you need help getting started, look at help with databases

With journal articles, you might have a citation that looks like this:

Griswold CE, Ubick D
Zoropsidae: A spider family newly introduced to the USA (Araneae, Entelegynae, Lycosoidea) J ARACHNOL 29 (1): 111-113 2001.

Be careful when you search databases for an author. Sometimes the databases use last name and first name, sometimes they use last name and just the first initial and middle initial. For example if you are searching for articles by Dr. Pat Byrne or Dr. Sarah Ward you might search by:

  • Ward, Sarah
  • Byrne, P* (the * is if you don't know the middle initial of their name, the * acts as a "wild card")
  • Ward, SM

DATABASES to start with.....don't just search yahoo.com or google.com

  • Agricola
    Citations and abstracts for articles from over 600 periodicals, as well as USDA and state experiment station and extension publications. This extensive database provides selective worldwide coverage of primary information sources in agriculture, forestry, and related fields. The literature cited is primarily in English, but over one-third of the database comprises citations in Western European, Slavic, Asian, and African languages.Coverage from 1970-present,updated monthly.

  • CAB Abstracts * (Silverplatter) - Offers abstracts and citations to a wide range of research in agriculture, veterinary medicine, earth sciences, natural sciences, bioagricultural sciences, crop science, forestry, natural resources management, biology, agroforestry, aquatic sciences, fisheries, wetlands and other subject areas. The coverage includes international articles and conference proceedings. Coverage from 1973-current. Updated quarterly.

  • Plant Science ** (CSA)
    Plant Science is a bibliographic database containing citations and abstracts of scientific literature on plant science, focussing on all plant scientific aspects, especially on pathology, symbiosis, biochemistry, genetics, biotechnology, techniques and environmental biology. Over 250 primary research journals are scanned by specialized scientific editors to add approximately 23,000 titles to the database each year.Coverage from 1996-present.Updated monthly

  • Web of Science (WOS) **
    Science (ISI) - Formerly known as the Science Citation Index. This powerful database tells you who cited a particular article and who that article cited. There is keyword searching, but no thesaurus or descriptor terms. Best search results include using a variety of search terms. Coverage from 1945-present. Updated: Weekly!!

  • How to find articles, not just scientific articles.

  • START EARLY ON YOUR ASSIGNMENT!

Web Resources

 

Allison Level originally created the content of this page, but as of June 2007 it is no longer being updated.