Information Retrieval

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Information Retrieval
Division of Ion Physics

• Ulrika Haak
• Ångström Library
• 2005-04-06
• http//www.ub.uu.se/linne/ang/eng/

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Introduction

• Information Literacy
• General search techniques
• Databases
• E-journals
• Library catalogues
• E-books
• Free web resources
• Interlibrary loans, alerts, impact factor, buying
  books etc
• Time for searching

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Information Literacy (Informationskompetens)

• Recognize the need for information
• Identify potential sources of information
• Develop successful search strategies
• Evaluate and select information
• Integrate new information into an existing body
  of knowledge
• Use information with critical thinking for
  problem solving etc

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Types of information retrieval

• Fundamental search within a subject field
• Finding known publications
• seeking facts
• Keeping yourself updated within a subject field

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Recognize the need for information

• What do I already know?
• How much information do I need?
• At what level?
• How recent?
• How fast?

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Choosing a tool/source

• Subject coverage
• type of material (books, articles, preprints,
  proceedings, facts etc
• geografic limitation/language
• period of time
• level
• availability
• Fulltext

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Selecting terms

• Formulate your question/problem in
  plain language
• Find your own words or use words from

• thesaurus
• guide to a controlled vocabulary used in a
  database
• Not so dependent of synonyms, often more
  relevant hits
• - New concepts now yet introduced
• hierarchical
• broader
• narrower
• related
• lead-in terms

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Search techniques

• truncation
• right hand comput
• left hand american
• Autostemming
• lubrication lubricate, lubricated etc
• masking
• wom?n
• Lindq??st
• exact phrase
• image analysis

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Boolean operators
AND OR NOT
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Boolean operators with brackets
A and (B or C) (A and B) or C
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Exact Phrase searching
Some databases peptide analysis only hits
with the words next to each other as a
phrase peptide AND analysis also hits with the
words separated within a record
Other databases and many search engines peptide
analysis The database automatically add and AND
between the words peptide analysis to only
get hits with the words next to each other
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A few more tips

• Start the search with few words and add more
  words one by one if needed
• Refine your search - be prepared to reevalute you
  search
• Note your search words and queries

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To find articles

• Printed journals in the library
• Electronic journals- articles as pdf-files
• Fulltext databases - limited to one publisher,
  can search the whole fulltext i.e. Science
  Direct
• Reference databases - Index published articles
  (etc.) within one or several subject fields.
  Abstracts. Often fulltext links to articles in
  journals we subscribe to t.ex. Inspec

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Inspec vs Compendex

• Broad subject areas of engineering and applied
  sciences (175 engineering disciplines)
• Ca 9 million records. Ca 5000 journals,
  conferenses and technical reports
• 1969- (1884-)
• Uppdatered once a week

• Concentration on physics, electronics, electrical
  engineering
• IT, control engineering)
• Ca 9 million records. Ca 3500 journals and 1500
  conference proceedings
• 1969- (1898-)
• Uppdated once a week

20 overlapping
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Inspec Compendex

• Boolean operators
• AND, OR, NOT
• Order of precedence from left to right
• Autostemming ()
• Right hand truncation
• Exact phrase or
• Search results can be sorted by relevance

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Reference manager program

• EndNote, Refworks, ProCite m.fl.
• Create your own database for organizing your
  references.
• EndNote can be used with Word to create
  references in different styles like Harvard, APA
  etc. directlty in the text you are writing
• You can export references from most databases to
  you Endnote files

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E-mail alert

• You report a search query to a database and then
  regularly get lists with new added
  resultsreferences to that query

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Science Citation Index (ISI Web of Knowledge

• Science
• Journal articles
• 1986-
• Uppdated weekly
• Links to cited and citing references
• Cited Ref Search
• See also ISI proceedings and ISI journal citation
  reports

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Science Citation Index

• All titles are translated into US English
• Truncation
• ? one character only
• zero or one character
• zero or more characters
• right hand or internal truncation
• kering inom ord

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Science Citation Index

• Boolean operators
• AND, OR, NOT
• Proximity operators
• ADJ (default) adjacent and in the same order
• SAME within the same sentence/keyword phrase in
  any order
• Order of precedence
• ( ), SAME, NOT, AND, OR
• Up to 50 operators in a single search

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Impact factor (IF)

• A measure on a journals comparative
  value/influence measured by how ofthen an avarage
  article in the journals has been cited in other
  articles during a certain period of time.

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Journal Citation Reports
Most frequently cited journals in a field
Highest impact journals in a field Hottest
journals in a field Leading journals in a field
Most published articles in a field?
Evaluate and compare journals using citation
data drawn from over 7000 scholarly and technical
journals
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INIS Database

• The International Nuclear Information System
• Reference database in nuclear science and
  technology
• Journal articles, conference articles, books,
  reports, theses, patents, standards, laws and
  regulations
• The database is published by the IAEA
• 1970-
• The worlds leading information system on the
  peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology
• For energy references see also ETDEWEB and Energy
  Citations Database

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Scifinder Scholar

• Chemical Abstracts and Medline
• 1907-
• 23 millions 13.4 million records
• Updated daily
• articles, books , patents, theses, conferences
• All kinds of chemistry and chemistry related
  references in physics, materials science etc
• Possible to search on chemical structures

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Patent databases

• Espacenet - Worldwide
• USPTO - american
• Drawings included

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To find books

• Library catalogues
• Disa - Uppsala university library
• see were the books is located and if it is
  available
• order/reserve books
• see and renew your loans
• Libris - national library catalogue
• See also RedLightGreen.com

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Order an interlibrary loan or a copy of an article

• Use the form on the Ångström Library web page
• Ion physics has its own account number
• Loans within Scandinavia Free
• Loans outside Scandinavia 150 Skr
• Copies within Scandinavia or from Subito 70 Skr
• Copies from outside Scandinavia 150 Skr
• Or suggest a purchase!
• The book can be reserved for you. Use the form on
  the library web page

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E-books

• Encyclopaedias
• Nationalencyklopedin
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• E-book collections/portals i.e.
• ENGnetBASE
• Knoveland more...

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Portals, links and search engines

• Search Engines
• EEVL, SCIRUS, Google Scholar,
• OAIster, PSIGate, A9, Answers.com,
• Brainboost, Teoma, Vivisimo
• To keep updated
• Internetbrus, Search Engines Watch
• Other links DOAJ, Find Articles
• The Invisible Web

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• Information skills tutorial Att söka
  information
• Ask a librarian/Fråga biblioteket!
• Coming soon Jourhavande bibliotekarie
• The Library Council