College of Technology - Weekend Master's Program

Selected Library Resources

Full-text general research databases
These databases have full-text of articles linked from most of the citations. The subject coverage is broad and interdisciplinary and the databases often present a good place to begin learning about a new topic.

• Academic Search Premier
• ERIC
  
  All aspects of education research and practice are covered.
• OmniFile Full-Text
  
  Indexes Education, General Science, Humanities, Readers´ Guide, Social Sciences, Business, Applied Science & Technology, Art, Biological & Agricultural, Legal Periodicals, Library Science
• Professional Development Collection
  
  Highly specialized information for professional educators.
• Proquest Research Library
• Lexis-Nexis
  
  General news; business, medical, and legal news and information.

Scientific and Technical Databases with some Full-Text linked
These databases are specific to subjects in science, engineering and technology. Most of these index primarily research publications. There are some full-text links included with the citations.

• Compendex
  
  Engineering Index. Covers all areas of Engineering and Technology and indexes materials from 1884-present.
• INSPEC
  
  Indexes journal articles and conference papers in the areas of physics, electrical and electronics engineering, computer and control and inforamtion technology. Coverage from 1898-present.
• Web of Science
  
  Trace the citation history of articles, especially articles that cite a given article. Can also search by subject, etc. Coverage from 1900-present.
• Also, look at the Subject Guides for your specific discipline for more suggestions of resources (from Engineering Library home page)

Full-text Scientific and Technical Databases
These are libraries that contain the all the publications of individual publishers in science, engineering and technology. They are convenient to navigate the literature from that publisher, but they ONLY index material from that publisher.

• ACM Digital Library
  
  Journal articles and conference papers from the Association for Computing Machinery from 1991-present.
• IEEE Xplore
  
  Journal articles, conference papers and standards from the IEEE and IEE covering 1988-present.
• Science Direct
  
  Journal articles published by Elsevier Science. Our access covers dates from approximately 1995-present.
• SPIE Digital Library
  
  Journal articles and SPIE proceedings publications available full-text online from 1990 - present.

Business and Industry Databases
These databases provide news, industry reports and market research reports. Full-text is included in all of these databases. For other business related databases, consult the Management Library web site (www.lib.purdue.edu/mel)
** Please remember your access to this information is for academic purposes ONLY.

• Marketresearch.com
  
  An academic database which contains market research reports and related materials.
• Forrester Research
  
  Includes technology focused market research reports. A registration is necessary to obtain access. New users and returning users have different links.
• Frost & Sullivan
  
  An extremely useful market report database. Very deep reports on industry markets.
• Business Source Premier
  
  A good source for articles, industry profiles, and market research reports. Includes SWOT analysis for companies.
• ABI/Inform Global and ABI/Inform Trade & Industry
  
  These databases will be useful for business news coverage.
• Factiva
  
  An excellent source for international news. It's possible to target publications from specific regions and countries.

Online reference resources
These links are to full-text scientific and technical encyclopedias and handbooks.

• Access Science
  
  This is the online edition of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Science and Technology.
• knovel
  
  An online collection of over 600 scientific and technical handbooks. Full-text searchable.
• EngNetBase
  
  CRC ENGnetBASE gives you online access to some of the world's leading engineering handbooks. Currently, more than 420 titles are available. Full-text searchable.
• Specifications and Standards Database
  
  Includes full-text of many US federal and industry standards.
• Safari Online Technical Books
  
  Safari is an electronic reference library for programmers and IT professionals.

Using Google Scholar?
Google Scholar will automatically find links to Purdue Library holdings, if you configure the 'Scholar Preferences'. In the 'Library Links' box, type 'Purdue' and click 'Find Library' button, and select the appropriate links (all of the 'real-Purdue' ones).

Literature review - descriptions
These links provide a good overview of what information goes into a literature review. They also discuss how to organize the review and what the ultimate purpose of a literature review is as part of the research process.

University of California, Santa Cruz

http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/literaturereview.html

University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html

University of Toronto

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

Suggestions for additional resources to be added to this page or questions on finding information can be sent to Amy .

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