Searching the UBC Library
The Okanagan Library maintains it's own website at: https://library.ok.ubc.ca/
The search box on the homepage contains four tabs along the top, two that may be of use in this course:
- General (red box)- this searches using the Summon discovery service that tries to search across most of UBC's resources. The Summon search is broad and large, which can cause results to be off-topic or returned in a high volume.
- Indexes and Databases (green box) - this is used to look up the name or subject of a database to go into to conduct a more specific search. Databases are a great way to cut out the noise that you would experience in Summon and often allow you to create more customized searches for your research question.
Databases
Databases are a great way of running your search in a contained environment. Some include wide-coverage that looks at content from multiple publishers, some are publisher specific, and others are focused on specific disciplines only.
- ScopusSearch citations and abstracts for journal articles, conference proceedings, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Can also be used for cited reference searches, citation analysis of research and searching by affiliation.
- Web of Science Core CollectionMultidisciplinary database of journal articles and conference proceedings, used for citation analysis of research. Includes access to EndNote Basic, a web-based version of EndNote.
- Agricultural & Environmental Science Database (AESD)The Agricultural & Environmental Science database (AESD) facilitates in-depth research and comprehensive literature reviews across the earth, atmospheric & aquatic sciences. Includes Agricola.
- GeobaseResearch literature with abstracts on human and physical geography, ecology, geology, oceanography, geomechanics and development studies.
- GeoRefComprehensive database of international research literature on geology and the geosciences.
- GreenFILEApproximately 300,000 articles on green issues, including green building, global warming, etc.
Search Engines
- Google ScholarWorld's largest academic search engine providing free searching to a full range of scholarly literature (ie. peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports).
Google Scholar can be linked to your CWL and it will help to detect accessible articles as you search:
For a seamless experience, on the Library Homepage Login to OpenAthens.
On the Google Scholar page, Sign In if you have a GMail account.
After you sign in:
- Click on "Settings" and then "Library Links"
- Search for UBC then select and Save the UBC eLInk results
If you do not have a GMail account, just go to the Google Scholar menu, select "Settings" and follow through as above.
In your search results, click on UBC eLink to access licensed resources.