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The University Libraries Web is the gateway to the wide range of resources that are available to the Penn State community. These include The CAT, the catalog of the materials that the University Libraries own, databases in a number of subjects, full text journal collections, and some full text reference materials. The CAT and the databases that are most useful in engineering science will be reviewed. After the summary of the database, there is a link to a web page with more detailed information and examples. The list of databases available through the University Libraries is called the Databases by Title (A-Z) available on the Libraries Home Page. All the databases described below are on the List.
Compendex
Compendex (Computerized Engineering Index) is the major index to all branches of engineering. It indexes journal articles and conference papers from 1884-. You may search by author, title words, keyword or subject headings, as well as other index terms.
Many of the articles are available full text online. Use the yellow fulltext links or the Get It! icon for more information.
INSPEC
Inspec is the electronic version of Physics Abstracts, Computer and Control Abstracts, and Electrical and Electronics Abstracts. It indexes conference papers and journal articles in physics, computer science, electrical engineering, as well as other related subjects. Inspec searches the same as Compendex and both databases can be searched at the same time if you check the "All" box at the topic of the search page.
NOTE - Compendex and INSPEC may be searched simultaneously if you check the "All" box at the top of the search page.
IEEExplore
IEEExplore includes journal articles, conference papers, and standards from IEEE and IET from 1988 -.
NTIS
NTIS (National Technical Information Service) is a major index to technical reports. A large percent are on the various branches of engineering. Coverage starts with 1964. You may search by author, title, keyword or subject headings. There is no call number, but each report is identified by a ID number, which is the number used in filing the reports, on microfiche, in cabinets on the left side of the Engineering Library. If the report you need is not in the file cabinet, ask for assistance at the circulation desk in the Engineering Library. We can order the report for you. It normally takes approximately ten days for the report to arrive. Note that many reports are now available full text on the Web so it is worth your time to copy the title of the report into the phrase option of Advanced Search in Google and see if you can locate the report on the web.
Science Citation Index - Web of Science
Science Citation Index is an important index that allows you to discover what subsequent publications have included a reference to an earlier, pertinent publication in their bibliography. SCI indexes 3200 titles in all areas of science and technology. Searching is done via author name. The theory behind citation indexing is simple. If a later paper references a paper that you have found useful, there is a strong possibility that the later paper might be useful to you. Citation indexing provides that link so you can locate these new papers. Full text links are available for many citations.
ACM Digital Library - papers and articles from the Association for Computing Machinery
Knovel - Full text collection of engineering handbooks with robust searching options
Dissertations and Theses - databases indexes dissertations and some theses from over 1000 U.S. and European universities. Some are available for download. For more information, see the Libraries' dissertations information page.
Science.gov - US web site to scientific and engineering information from all appropriate agencies
Google Scholar - Google search to scholarly web sites. If you search using a PSU IP or selecting Penn State from the Library Links page, you will get a "Get It at Penn State" link to available full text items.
Scirus - search interface to scholarly, government, etc. information in the sciences and engineering
US Patent and Trademark Office
Services for Distance Education - Libraries page with information for distance students
WorldCat - database with the records of thousands of libraries around the world. May be useful for distance students to locate relevant materials in a local library. Click on the Librarys that own link for this information.
Both print and electronic resources can be found in the CAT. In general, when you search the CAT you are searching for books, conferences, journals, and some reports and standards but not for journal articles or conference papers. For the articles and conference papers you need to search a subject databases (Compendex or Inspec).
Note – when you click exact, it will default to title. You can also search on author (selected from the drop down menu) if you know the author instead of the title.
My title is the second on the results list.
There are 2 editions of this book. I’m interested in the most recent edition so I click on the title link and I get detailed information about the book. The location is given (Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library and the book is available for check out.
Use advanced search. You can search by keyword, title and subject, title, author, subject, and series.
In this case I want handbooks on acoustics. I know that both of the terms in the first search box are valid so I search them with an OR so I get either term. I’m also interested in handbooks so I add that term and use the connector AND so I get results that have both the first set of terms and the second.
Also note that I used the $ at the end of handbook. This is the truncation symbol for the CAT and I will get items with the term handbook or handbooks in the title or subject fields. The word handbook may not be in the title even though it is a handbook. In that case, the subject descriptor is important and it will always be plural so the $ is important.
There are 33 titles that are on acoustics and are handbooks. As long as the number of hits is below 999 the results will display in reverse chronological order. Some of the handbooks are online full-text while others are in print.
You can search exact journal titles by selecting journal title from the search box.
Here is the results screen. Note the date on the right side refers to starting publications dates and can be misleading. In this case, I’m interested in the first record as it is online.
Clicking on the title of the journal gives me the following record. To see the online content, click on GetIt!
The GetIt! screen will give you the options for accessing the full text journal. Note that the first covers the first issue to the present. You can click on journal, select a volume and issue and scan the table of contents for full text articles of interest. While we are moving to electronic access of journals, there are still some journals that are only available in print and that will be evident in the GetIt! page.
