Graphs Equations Tables (G.E.T.) search available at Knovel.

View Tutorials (short movies) on how to use G.E.T. Search and Knovel’s Interactive Analysis Tools

Sample Search: Address = Stanford AND Funding Agency = NSF

Results in Brief Display Format

Full Display Format for First Record in Results

In SearchWorks, enter interscience.wiley.com as search term.

Use categories on left side to refine search:
For Access — select Online
For Format — select Book

Searchworks is part of a new discovery environment that is being developed for Stanford users. With searchworks you can browse by call number across all of the libraries at one time instead of one library at a time in Socrates. Search results are relevancy ranked rather than reverse chronological order. You can also see what’s checked out and what’s online without having to view details. Some similar items are included automatically in the full display format. You can even preview the contents via a link to Google.

One of the greatest challenges in libraries like Stanford’s is finding the right information among all of its holdings and licensed content. Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) has been experimenting with adopting some new technologies and approaches that make discovering the Stanford Libraries’ information resources better, faster, and easier.

This Fall Quarter, we have made public an early prototype of a new information discovery environment dubbed SearchWorks.

SearchWorks Features

In addition to a simple, intuitive user interface, it includes, among other features:

• browse collections by access, library, format, language, or call number
• “did you mean?” spelling suggestions for search terms
• relevance ranked search results
• ability to refine search results by a number of facets (e.g., author, topic, location, etc.)
• search results that show what print volumes are available for checkout
• book cover images and table of contents for some items
• RSS feeds for saved searches

Powered by VuFind

Under the covers, SearchWorks is powered by VuFind, an open source library discovery application originally developed at Villanova University, and a suite of other open source search components.

Using open source software allows the tool to be enhanced and extended. While the service is currently an early prototype, over the course of the coming year, many more features will be added, and the scope of its coverage will be expanded to include finding aids for special collections; digitized, full text resources; image and media collections, and more.

Complements Socrates

SearchWorks is designed to complement Socrates, which will remain in place with all its current functionality, and continue to serve as the Stanford Libraries’ online catalog.

For More Information

Give SearchWorks a try! You can let us know how you like it or get more information about it by clicking on the Feedback button on the SearchWorks home page or by sending email to searchworks-feedback@lists.stanford.edu.

Source: Tom Cramer. “SearchWorks Prototype Offers a Glimpse of Next Generation Library Search.” Speaking of Computers, September 30, 2008, Issue No. 78.

They’ve also widened the compound identifiers to include groups and relationships via the ChEBI (Chemical Entities of Biological Interest) ontology. Links to patent information and to compounds in PubChem have also been added.

Google Search Tips (pdf)

Google Scholar (pdf)

Google Book Search (pdf)

Google Book Search Handout (pdf)

Libraries and Google Book Search (pdf)

Below are some advantages and disadvantages of doing a full-text search of journal articles on a publisher’s web site.

Advantages:

• No lag time between time of publication and when article can be searched
• Ability to search entire contents of an issue, not just research articles
• Ability to search the entire text of an article by keyword (helpful for finding information about laboratory methods)
• Helps provide quality control (e.g. all articles are refereed)
• Efficient method to verify a citation
• No search fees

Disadvantages:

• Possible to miss relevant research without searching multiple sites
• Using only keywords to search subjects can cause you to miss important articles and/or get too many irrelevant items
• Inconsistent data (e.g. author names) may make it difficult to find all relevant articles
• Potential gaps in coverage (early years may not be included)

Links to selected journal publisher sites are available on Swain’s Alerts page

A more comprehensive journals list is also available from Cambridge University

See also: Song Yu. 2004. “Not Just Full-Text Articles: Comparing the Search Function Among Chemistry Electronic Journals’ Web Sites.” Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, Winter 2004. URL: http://www.istl.org/04-winter/refereed.html

Search Tips and Caveats:

• Search Tips:
  • Remember to use wild card characters at end of search terms to find items that use singular and plural forms of a term. This is the easiest way to miss items of interest.
  • Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) used between search terms may need to be typed in capital letters.
  • Many sites use double-quotation marks around terms to search them as a phrase.
• Google Books isn’t able to display the full-text for some titles due to copyright restrictions. Many full-text titles that we’ve licensed are not in Google Books.
• Some sites such as MyiLibrary only allow users to display one page at a time (no downloading of entire chapter). Other sites will allow full chapters to be downloaded at a time.
• Most license agreement prohibit downloading of entire books. All books published before 1923 are in the Public Domain or freely accessible.
• Some titles are available from two sources — Elsevier and Springer titles are both in MyiLibrary and in publishers sites.
• Wiley titles licensed are impossible to identify on the publisher’s site. This problem won’t be fixed until 2009. A list of available titles is being compiled and will be distributed to you when it’s completed.
• Socrates contains links for some eBooks. Efforts are underway to get catalog records and links added to Socrates for all eBooks purchased by the Stanford Univ. Libs. Links will also be added to Socrates records for Stanford books that were scanned by Google too.
• WorldCat, which has catalog records from thousands of libraries, does include links to eBooks. We may have access to some of these ebooks (but none from NetLibrary because their access conditions are unacceptable).
• One option under consideration is a search engine that would let you search multiple eBook sites simultaneously.

For now, I recommend trying out various eBook sites to see which ones contain content you need. Please contact me if you have any questions or need any help.