Library research skills in engineering

LIBRARY RESEARCH SKILLS IN
ENGINEERING
Seminaris de recerca
March 2019

Some questions
I want to read an article, I googled it,
but was asked to pay $$$. What’s up?!
I need articles on PID controllers,
I tried looking in the catalogue,
but only found books. Are there no articles?

I have a lot of bibliographic references
but I never find what I need :-(
Can I use an image which I googled
for my academic work?
Some questions

1. Starting your research
2. Search strategy
3. Types of documents (books, articles ...)
4. Tools for searching information
4.1. Bibliotècnica
4.2. Library catalogue
4.3. Specialized databases
4.4. Electronic journals
4.5. UPCommons
4.6. Internet
5. Evaluation and ethical use of information
6. Managing bibliographic citations with Mendeley
7. Keeping up-to-date on engineering information
Outline

1. Start your research
Steps to good research
Define and articulate
a research question
Identify best sources
and research tools
Evaluate items you
have found
Carry out searches
and locate the items
Synthesize, analyze
and integrate
information sources
Cite what you find
using a standard
format

1. Start your Research
2. Search strategy
4.1. Bibliotècnica
4.2. Library catalogue
4.3. Specialized databases
4.5. UPCommons
4.6. Internet
Outline

Summarize your topic in one or two sentences
Keywords and phrases need to be highlighted
Identify synonyms/ alternate terms and variant spellings
Link your keywords and phrases
Locate your information
SKILL
2. Search strategy

Summarise your topic in one or two sentences.
Summarize your topic
2. Search strategy

Identify the keywords and phrases that are relevant
to your topic.
Select your Keywords
2. Search strategy

Not all of the relevant literature will use exactly the same
keyword, so you will need think about possible synonyms,
alternate keywords, or words with variant spellings.
Identify synonyms and alternative
keywords
Encyclopaedi
a dictionaries
glossaries …
2. Search strategy

Think about how you will use your key words and
phrases to construct a search. For instance, you might
use a combination of Boolean operators
2. Search strategy
AND OR NOT

phrase searching — use quotation marks to find a phrase.
For instance, "environmental impact"
“truncation” — use "wildcard" symbols to allow you to
search multiple forms of a term (singular/plural, variable
spellings, etc.
comput* > computing, computed, computers
2. Search strategy

If you have too many results you may want to:
• add additional keywords or phrase
• limit your search results by document type, date, subject
• conduct your search in a particular field
If you have too few results you may want to:
• check your spelling
• remove some of the keywords
• try alternate keywords and phrases
• try alternate databases
Locating an evaluating your results
https://www.library.uq.edu.au/how-to-guides/create-search-strategy
2. Search strategy

Topic:
How is the financial services industry
handling organizational change?
Concepts:
financial services
change
Synonyms:
financial institutions
restructur*
(financial service* OR financial institution*)
AND (change OR restructur*)
2. Search strategy

What are the control systems (= control
system, industrial control) applied
(industrial application, aerospace
application, manufacturing) to the
aerospace industry (aerospace industry,
aeronautical industry, aircraft
manufacture)?
2. Search strategy

If you are looking for Look in these information sources
Biographies Books, periodicals, encyclopedias, websites
Companies, people,
organizations
Directories
Facts
Almanacs, atlases, books, databases, dictionaries, encyclopedias, government
documents, handbooks, manuals, newspapers, websites, yearbooks
Graphics/Image-based Almanacs, atlases, books, databases, websites
Original documents Bibliographies, books, periodical articles, websites
Popular opinion Books, periodical articles, newspapers, websites
Products Databases, manufacturer & vendor catalogs
Professional commentary Bibliographies, books, periodical articles, websites, yearbooks
Research
Bibliographies, books, government documents, periodical articles, statistical
abstracts
Statistics/Data Almanacs, atlases, books, databases, statistical abstracts, websites, yearbooks
<http://info-skills.lib.vt.edu/>
3. Types of documents

• Articles
• Proceedings
• Books or books chapters
• Reports
• Encyclopedias and dictionaries
• Directories
• Bibliographies
• Patent
• Standards
• Dissertations
• Manuals
• Manufacturer & vendor catalogs
• Statistical abstracts
• Yearbooks
Identifing the appropriate type of access tool
library
catalogue
web indexes
search
engines
databases
3. Types of documents

<http://bibliotecnica.upc.edu/>

Catalan Universities Consortium Catalogue

Someone recommended me a book from the
Terrassa Campus Library about heat transfer
written by an author called Janna.
How can I find it?

w can I find it?
And how can I find this?
Malaval, P., Béaroya, C., Aflalo, J. Aerospace
marketing management : a handbook for the entire
value chain. Management for professionals.
Heidelberg [etc.] : Springer, cop. 2014. ISBN 978-3-
319-01354-1
DiscoveryUPC

A database may contain: Citations
Citation & Abstracts
Full Text
A database is a set of specialized information,
organized and structured to be retrieved
WHAT IS A DATABASE?

Databases organize and structure information in order
to facilitate retrieval, usually by author, title, subject, etc.

<http://bibliotecnica.upc.edu/en/ebib>
Drag the button to the toolbar
Access to databases and other licensed
information resources

Access to databases and other licensed
information resources

Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed
literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings.
Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in
the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and
humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize
research.
Scopus (Elsevier)

SCOPUS
I am looking for recent
articles on human factors
in helicopter accidents

On Engineering Village platform, Compendex (Engineering Index)
provides international coverage of engineering and applied science
literature in over 5000 journals, conference proceedings, and technical
reports.
The broad subject areas of engineering and applied science are
comprehensively represented. Coverage includes nuclear technology,
bioengineering, transportation, chemical and process engineering, light
and optical technology, agricultural engineering and food technology,
computers and data processing, applied physics, electronics and
communications, control, civil, mechanical, materials, petroleum,
aerospace and automotive engineering as well as narrower subtopics
within all these and other major engineering fields.
Compendex / Inspec

It contains material published mainly by the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and other partner
publishers. IEEE Xplore provides web access to more than 4.5-
million documents from publications in computer science,
electrical engineering, electronics and allied fields.
IEEE Xplore

SABI (Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos) includes financial
analyses of 2.500.000 Spanish firms and 700,000 Portuguese
companies with annual reports dating up to 20 years ago. Prepared by
Bureau van Dijk, data are obtained from official sources, mercantile
registries, BORME (the Mercantile Registry' s official gazette), the
press, etc. It has software available to analyze the data obtained and
can segment companies and compare firms to a given group.
SABI

SABI allows you to carry out different financial and credit
functions, including:
• You would be able to set up a permanent file of your customers
and suppliers in order to track their financial progress according
to the criteria you are interested in.
• You would be able to make credit analyses adapted to each
particular case.
• Prepare periodic reports according to your own design.
• Position a company with regard to its competitors.
• Identify candidates for company acquisitions, mergers or
associations.
• Receive input for the development of internal rating provision.
http://www.informa.es/en/soluciones-financieras/sabi

Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow
Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and
free sources, and provides organizations with search, alerting,
dissemination, and other information management capabilities. Factiva
products provide access to more than 32,000 sources (such as
newspapers, journals, magazines, television and radio transcripts,
photos, etc.) from nearly every country worldwide in 28 languages,
including more than 600 continuously updated newswires.
FACTIVA

Bibliographic databases
FACTIVA
I am looking for
information about the
pollination with drones

ÍnDICEs-CSIC
The ÍnDICEs-CSIC bibliographic database covers the Spanish
scientific production published in Spain from the 70s up to date. It
mostly includes articles from scientific journals, but also a
selection of congress and conference proceedings, serials,
compilations, reports and monographies about social sciences,
humanities and technology.

Finding journals
If an e-journal is available, you will see the e-journal title and a link

Finding journals

Barjis, Joseph; Fosso Wamba, Samuel. Organizational
and business impacts of RFID technology. Business
Process Management Journal, 2010, vol. 16, núm. 6, p.
897-903
Guzmán Cuevas, Joaquín J.; Martínez Román, Juan
Antonio. Tipología de la innovación y perfiles
empresariales: una aplicación empírica. Economía
Industrial, 2008, núm. 368, p. 59-77

UPCommons is the gateway that provides open access
to the knowledge of UPC. It is formed by the group of
UPC open institutional repositories and its aim is to
guarantee the safeguarding of the material produced
by lecturers and researchers at the University,
maximizing their visibility and, consequently, increasing
its impact on education and research worldwide.

Exploring the web

Citation and plagiarism
Bear in mind to cite the sources you have used to support the
arguments of your work.
Faithfully reproduce the texts or images indicating the author and
the source from where you took it, whether from a book, a booklet,
a Web page, etc.
If you do not do this, you would be plagiarizing.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is understood to be the reproduction of a
substantial content of another work pretending it to be one's
own.
Therefore:
• Create your own arguments; don't simply "copy-paste“
• Indicate fragments from other works that you are quoting
between inverted commas ("") and remember to indicate
the source and author (bibliographical reference).
• Paraphrase

5%
25%
42%
83%
19% 15%
Gilmore, Barry. Stopping Plagiarism at the Source
40%
24%
34%
1%
1%
Why Students Plagiarize
Ease/Laziness Pressure: deadlines
Pressure: grades Confusion: process
Culture/everyone does it

• Direct quotes.
• Paraphrasing or summarizing.
• Information which may be common knowledge
but still unfamiliar to your reader.
• Not just books or articles should be cited.
• Whenever you are not sure if something should
be cited.
WHEN TO CITE

 How you will reference your sources within
your paper?
IN TEXT citation
END NOTES
FOOT NOTES
 Which format and style guide to use?
HOW TO CITE

Bibliographical
citations
Bibliographical
references

Last name, First name. Title: subheading. Edition.
Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication.
Collection title, collection number*. ISBN.
Bibliografical reference ISO690. Book

How to write a bibliography and
cite sources in the text?

Calvo Fernández, S. / Reinares Lara, P. (2001). Comunicación en Internet:
Estrategias de márketing y comunicación interactiva. Ed. Paraninfo
Clark, Josh. Diseño y usabilidad de aplicaciones para iPhone. Madrid: Anaya
Multimedia, 2011. ISBN 97-8844151-034-0
Brian McConnell, Alexander Tolley. A Design for a Reusable Water-Based
Spacecraft Known as the Spacecoach. Cham : Springer International
Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2016. ISBN 9783319226774
Nielsen, Jacob. Usability inspection methods. Paper presented at: Conference
companion on Human factors in computing systems. Human Factors in
Computing Systems. Nova York: ACM, 2004. p. 413-414
Reed, M., ed. Organic food and agriculture [online]: new trends and
developments in the social sciences. Rikeja: InTech, 2012. Accessed 12
January 2015. ISBN 97-8953307-764-2. Available at:
<http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/1526>.

Reference management tools

Before… Nowadays…
Image 1: Mattox http://www.sxc.hu
+ easy + fast + features

Reference managers are programs that allow you to:
1. Manage bibliographic citations
2. Search in a database and import the results
3. Create bibliographies and in-text citations

It is a free reference manager and academic
social network that can help you organize your
research, collaborate with others online, and
discover the latest research.

Mendeley – what’s it for?
 Import documents to your personal library and organize
them through tags and folders.
 Share your research: create public & private groups,
share documents, collaborative work in academic articles
review or following groups.
 Include citations to Word documents and generate
bibliographies.
 Create a profile with your curriculum, publications,
affiliation, etc.

Mendeley Institutional Edition
 100 GB of storage space for individual users.
 100 collaborators.
 Private groups up to 25 members.
 Unlimited number of private groups.
 Mendeley suggest in the desktop utility to receive
article recommendations based in your personal
library.

How to obtain these advantages?
 You need to have an UPC email address in your
Mendeley Profile (if it is not an UPC address,
click on your name > Settings & Privacy to
change the address)
 You need to be a member of the UPC group
“Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya“
Mendeley Institutional Edition

>> available from our computer/laptop
>> browse, organize and add items
>> generate the bibliography
>> available from any device
>> browse, organize and add items
Mendeley - Let’s start

Document
details
Folders
Read, no read and
favourite
Add
references
manually
References
search
Groups
Mendeley Desktop overview

Mendeley - Let’s start
 Sign up for Mendeley online
 Download Mendeley Desktop
 Build your library

 Adding entry manually
 Web Importer
 Mendeley Icon
 Dragging and dropping PDFs
 Introducing an identifier
 Importing your references from RIS, BibText, etc.
 Finding new articles in the Mendeley Reseach Catalog and
in the Mendeley suggest
Mendeley – Building our Library

Mendeley – Adding documents

Gonzalez, Rafael C.; Woods, Richard
E. Digital image processing. 4th ed.
Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2017.
ISBN 9781292223049.

Import documents in just in click!
 Web Importer

Use the Web Importer to add from online databases
2
 Web Importer

 Web Importer
+info

Let’s try Web Importer
10 items from Scopus

 Mendeley Icon
Add into a folder

Let’s to try Mendeley icon
2 items from Discovery UPC

 Dragging & dropping PDFs
with Watch Folder new downloaded PDF
onto a folder are submitted automatically
1
2

Let’s try dragging and
dropping a PDF

 Introducing an identifier
Mendeley adds
missing info
automatically
Enter the DOI, PubMed or Arxiv ID
and click IDs d’ArXiv o PubMed and
click on the  to start to look up
1
2
3

Let’s try searching for a
document by its identifier

 Importing from RIS, BibText, etc.
Copy-and-paste (or drag and drop) the
RIS, BibText file into the Mendeley
folder you want

Let’s try importing a document
with RIS format
5 items from Materials Science &
Engineering Database

Let’s try creating a folder and
checking for duplicates

 Searching Literature in Mendeley

Documents and people suggested by Mendeley
depending on your Library content
 Suggesting documents from Mendeley

Don’t forget SINCHRONIZE

Mendeley – Edit your profile

Mendeley – Create and use groups

Let’s try creating a private
group and inviting two
classmates

The Citation Plugin allows you to quickly
and easily cite materials that you’ve
added to your Mendeley library - as well
as generating a full bibliography of the
materials you’ve referenced in the paper.
Install it from mendeley Desktop: Tools –
Install … Plugin
Mendeley – How to generate citations

Mendeley – How to generate citations
We used standard CIE responses, neglecting more recent and accurate photopic
responses known as Judd (Judd, 1951) modified V(l), Judd-Vos modified VM(l) (Vos,
1978) and Stockman and Sharpe (Stockman and Sharpe, 2000) V*2ðlÞ, because for
now tandardiza-tion of the ratio has priority over accuracy.
Preventing the blue component from reaching the eye by means of filters blocking
wavelengths under 530 nm, preserves nocturnal melatonin production in humans
(Leonid et al., 2005). This implies that the blue component of light has the severest
consequences for the environment and human health.
Judd, D.B., 1951. Proceedings of the Twelfth Session of the CIE. Bureau Central de la CIE, Paris. 11
Leonid, K., Casper, R.F., Hawa, R.J., Perelman, P., Chung, S.H., Sokalsky, S., Shapiro, C.M., 2005. Blocking low-
wavelength light prevents nocturnal mela-tonin suppression with No adverse effect on performance during
Simulated shift work. J. Clin. Endocrin. Metabol. 90 (5), 2755-2761.
Stockman, A., Sharpe, L.T., 2000. The spectral sensitivities of the middle- and long-wavelength-sensitive cones
derived from measurements in observers of known genotype. Vis. Res. 40, 1711-1737.
Vos, J.J., 1978. Colorimetric and photometric properties of a 2 fundamental observer. Color Res. Appl. 3, 125-128.

Mendeley – How to generate a bibliography

and… if I have any doubts about
intellectual property rights ?

1. Start your Research
2. Search strategy
4.1. Bibliotècnica
4.2. Library Catalogue
4.3. Specialized Databases
4.5. UPCommons
4.6. Internet
Outline

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/11/11/101-innovations-in-scholarly-
communication/
6. Keeping up-to-date on business information

RSS
blogs
conferences
journals
books
distribution
lists
article
journals
E-prints
social nets
Current awareness
citations
web
resources

Source: InfoSphère
PULL PUSH
6. Keeping up-to-date on business information6. Keeping up-to-date on business information

Source: http://www.bnpadvisors.com/information-overload-clinic/
Information overload

Marta Roca Lefler
marta.roca@upc.edu

Library research skills in engineering

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