Find journal articles, conference papers, reports, etc., about topics in Food Science. What is a library database?
Library Databases to start with:
- UBC Library Summon A good place to start your general search - you can limit to articles or books.
- FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts) Indexes literature in all aspects of food science, food products and food processing, including biotechnology, economics, marketing, legislation and packaging.
- Web of Science All areas of science including chemistry, useful for finding articles that have cited a particular article
Other useful databases:
- SEARCH Indexes literature in every major agricultural subject; North American focus
- Compendex core literature from the engineering field
- Cabi Digital Library agricultural and global health literature
- Google Scholar interdisciplinary results
- PubMed Health literature, including nutrition
- Scopus interdisciplinary results
Tips for database searching:
- Background information:
Enables you to focus your topic and to learn new vocabulary to formulate a decent search. Use encyclopedias, textbooks or Google to identify good search terms.
- Thesaurus:
Most databases have a list of subject headings used to describe the articles. Some databases (e.g. FSTA) will suggest subject headings when you enter a keyword (i.e. mapping).
- Subject headings:
In addition to the thesaurus, if you find a really good article, look at the Complete Reference to see what subject headings were used to describe it.
- Combining terms:
Use AND, OR, NOT to combine your ideas.
- Truncation:
Search variant endings of a word, e.g. enzym* will search enzyme, enzymes and enzymatic
- Limits:
Narrow your results by year or language.
- See also: Library Research Skills for Land and Food Systems tutorial: http://guides.library.ubc.ca/tutorial-lfs