Articles

The absolute best way to search for journal articles is to use a journal article database. These are huge databases of journal articles in various disciplines. Engineering Village 2: Compendex & Inspec are the premier journal article databases for computer science. Journal article databases may also contain information on conference proceedings, patents, book chapters, and book reviews.

Use the Databases link to learn more about specific databases that are useful to you. Some databases have tutorials available. The most difficult part is finding the right database and getting the right keywords. If you don't find something in 15 minutes, switch to another database. Better yet, contact me! I can provide quick tips for searching and save you time!

General Tips for Searching

1. Use synonyms for words and alternate names for compounds
2. Use truncation (finds alternate endings of words). Usually a *. Example butterfl* will find butterfly or butterflies
3. Most databases do not search "natural language" so break the search into concepts. SciFinder will take natural language e.g. antibiotic residues in meat. Other databases will need to be searched using "antibiotic residues" (use the " " to search terms as a phrase) and meat.
4. Most databases now provide ways of automatically refining your search. ISI products (Web of Science, Biosis Previews) have search suggestions and limits on the left hand side of the screen, while Inspec and Compendex list these on the right side of the screen. Often very useful!

Getting the Article

1. Most databases have links to items that are available in full text (the complete article is available online). However, these are not always accurate nor are they complete.
2. If you don't see a link to the full text or the link takes you to a site that asks for a credit card, go the the UNT Library Catalog (first link on the Libraries home page) and use the Journal Title search (far right tab) to search for the name/title of the journal (not the title of the actual article) to see if the Libraries has the journal in electronic or print form.
   
3. Journal title records can be difficult to read. Look first for any results that say "electronic resource" as this is the online format. These will have holdings information (what volumes and issues you can access) in the middle of the screen. I recommend trying the links anyway as sometimes they are incorrect. If there are a variety of options, select the one that looks like the publisher of the journal - sometimes it will say "from publisher" or you'll recognize that the link looks different from the others.
4. Records for items that we have in print will have a "library has" statement just under the name of the name of journal. This tells you which volumes and issues we have in our collection. Be sure to note which library the journals are located in.
5. If you have searched the UNT Library Catalog by Journal Title, then Title, then Keyword, and can't find the item you need, use our interlibrary loan system. The interlibrary loan process will look for the item in another library and bring it to you (usually via e-mail for journal articles). Access the interlibrary loan system at Create an ILLiad Account as a new user you will need to create an account, then request your item. This service is free!

 Click here to Enter the ACM Digital Library.

With over 54,000 full text articles from journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, consider searching the ACM Digital for research topics and information in subjects such as computer science and engineering.  Publication are generally available for the full set of issues published (as early as 1954 in one case) and because the ACM often publishes in cooperation with IEEE, links to content on the IEEE site will direct users to full text housed there as well.

The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Digital Library offers:

• bibliographic citations

• abstracts

• reviews

• full text for articles (primarily available in PDF) published in ACM proceedings and periodicals.

In ACM, you can search by keyword, title, author, publication, affiliation or use a guide search using boolean operators to find articles of interest.  Once discovered, articles can be downloaded, emailed or printed and can be accessed from any computer at anytime, 24 hours a day.

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about the ACM Digital Library.

 Click here to Enter Engineering Village.

Engineering Village is a research tool that provides engineers with the right information and more intelligence about the information they’re looking at. Engineering Village delivers comprehensive and trustworthy data upon which sound decisions can be based. It helps engineering professionals make sense of what they find and apply it to their work.

The databases available on Engineering Village have been selected for their authoritative content. Their coverage is rigorously selected from sources that are relevant, trustworthy and appropriate to engineers. Experts enhance and categorize information using engineering-specific terminology, so engineers can easily find what they need. The added intelligence helps engineers find and understand information so they can act on it.

EV (Engineering Village) provides access to both Compendex (the electronic version of Engineering Index, with abstracts for journal articles and technical literature from 1970-current) and INSPEC (the database for physics, computer science, electrical engineering, & information technology, abstracts from 1969-current.).  The database also includes access to:

• the US Patent and Trademark Database (full text is available)
• EngNetBase (CRC Handbooks for which UNT has not purchased access to full text)
• Techstreet Standards (a searchable database for standards and specs but the full text must be paid for separately.)

In Engineering Village, you can search by keyword, title, author, publication, affiliation or use a guide search using boolean operators to find articles of interest.  Once discovered, articles can be downloaded, emailed or printed and can be accessed from any computer at anytime, 24 hours a day.

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about Engineering Village.

 Click here to Enter IEEE Xplore.

IEEE Xplore, also called IEEE Electronic Library or IEL, provides full text access to IEEE Journals, Transactions, Magazines, Letters, Conference Proceedings, Standards (current only), and IEE Journals and Conferences. Coverage is from 1988 to current, with some journals and conference titles available from 1950. Full text uses PDF format with photographs and charts. Xplore emphasizes information resources for electrical & electronics engineering, computer science, telecommunications, and, to a lesser extent, physics and general engineering.The industry's most powerful resource, IEEEXplore provides access to almost a third of the world's current electrical engineering and computer science literature.

In Xplore, you can search by keyword, title, author, publication, affiliation or use a guide search using boolean operators to find articles of interest.  Once discovered, articles can be downloaded, emailed or printed and can be accessed from any computer at anytime, 24 hours a day.

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about IEEE Xplore.

 Click here to Enter ScienceDirect.

ScienceDirect provides full text access to over 1800 journals from Elsevier and Academic Press, representing all areas of science, medicine, and technology, as well as inter-disciplinary titles.

In ScienceDirect, you can search by keyword, title, author, publication, affiliation or use a guide search using boolean operators to find articles of interest.  Once discovered, articles can be downloaded, emailed or printed and can be accessed from any computer at anytime, 24 hours a day.

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about IEEE Xplore.

Click here to Enter Web of Science

Web of Science service, part of the ISI Web of Knowledge, provides web access to the following citation indexes from 1995 to the present: Science Citation Index; Social Sciences Citation Index; and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. These resources enable the user to identify related writings (periodical articles, reviews, etc.) by indicating sources in which a known article by a given author has been cited.

Web of Science provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with quick, powerful access to the world's leading citation databases.  Authoritative, multidisciplinary content covers:

• over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings. 
  
• You'll find current and retrospective coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage available to 1900.

 In Web of Science, you can search by keyword, title, author, publication, affiliation or use a guide search using boolean operators to find articles of interest.  Once discovered, articles can be downloaded, emailed or printed and can be accessed from any computer at anytime, 24 hours a day.

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  For specific questions or comments, content Beth Thomsett-Scott at beth.thomsett-scott@unt.edu.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about Web of Science.

Click here to Enter the Directory of Open Access Journals

The Lund University Libraries in Sweden support this directory of over 6000 open access journals, 2000+ of which are searchable at the article level. All subjects are included with large collections in biology, education, health sciences, history, library and information science, mathematics and the social sciences.  The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact, with the additional goal of becoming comprehensive, covering all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.  The Directory of Open Access Journals currently provides 268 computer science journals and many more under the subject tree of engineering and technology. 

 The DOAJ defines open access as journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Additionally the journal must provide:

• Peer-review or editorial quality control
• Report primary results of research or overviews of research results to a scholarly community
• Must appear or intended to appear indefinitely at regular intervals, generally more frequently than annually, each issue of which is numbered or dated consecutively and normally contains separate articles, stories, or other writings

For additional help or for database instruction, contact Randy Wallace at randy.wallace@unt.edu or instant message him using Meebo.  For specific questions or comments, check the Directory's FAQ.  If unavailable, don't forget to Ask Us using virtual reference chat, email, phone, or visit a reference desk to learn more about the Directory of Open Access Journals.