Information Skillsfor first year Geographers

Roger Mills & Sue BirdOULS Bio- & Environmental Sciences

October 2008

Today’s sessionUsing tools:

SOLO / OLISOxford e-journalsOxLIP+

Finding items on reading listsCitation and plagiarismSubject searching

WoKSCOPUSReference books

First

Login computer if necessary:Username: rslreadertrainingPassword: rslreadertraining

Open web browserGo to www.ouls.ox.ac.uk

SOLO

Searches the library catalogue OLIS and some other catalogues

Use it as a starting point for all searchesLinks from many web pages including

libraries home page www.ouls.ox.ac.uk Or go direct to http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk

Search for a book

Carolyn Merchant (2004) Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture, Routledge

Search for a periodical

Amin A and N Thrift (2005) 'What's Left: Just the Future', Antipode: a radical journal of Geography, 37, 2, 220-238

Exercises

Try exercise 1

Citation and Plagiarism

Note the statement on the OUCE web site: http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/info/fhs/plagiarism.php

Avoid trouble by getting into good habits now – always record your source, and the date you found it

Learn to cite references in a standard way – e.g. the Harvard system

Useful guide available in Blackwells £1 Software is available to manage references – e.g.

EndNote, RefWorks

Subject Searching

To find information about a topic, rather than a specific reference, use a database that indexes articles – e.g.:Web of Knowledge (WoK) / Web of Science (WoS)SCOPUS

Online reference books and newspapers are good for finding facts and biographies

Find some articles on biodiversity politics. Which have been the most influential?

Find a book review

For The slum and the ghetto by TL Philpott

Search for the book title in inverted commas:

“The slum and the ghetto”

Restrict search by document type ‘Book Review’

SCOPUS

Elsevier’s alternative to WoKIncludes data from GEOBASE - The

bibliographic database for the Earth, Geographical and Ecological Sciences

tidal inlets AND Canada

“tidal inlets” AND Canada

“tidal inlet” AND Canada

(“tidal inlet” OR “tidal inlets”) AND Canada

Book reviews

Export

Exercise 2

Now try these:

1. Find some articles on the drying up or desertification of the Aral Sea

2. Find a reference to a book review of David Harvey’s book “Spaces of Hope”

Reference works

If you wanted to find a general introduction to the topic of Gaia, where might you look?

Biographical Resources

You have been asked to give the vote of thanks to Ron Johnston who is coming to speak to the Herbertson Society. Where might you start to look for information about him? What hobby does he have outside his geographical interests?

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