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Geography 380
Conservation of Natural Resources

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Contact liaison librarian
Kim Bartosz



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Learning outcomes

At the end of this session you will be able to:

  • Use the Library catalog to perform simple searches to locate reference
    materials and books on your topic.
  • Find print and/or electronic articles using various library databases
  • Use relevant websites
  • Locate style guide help sheets to assist you in properly citing materials
Background research

Reference books are excellent places to start research. The following are books that provide background information, definitions, and lists of potential sources for further research.

McGraw-Hill dictionary of environmental science (REF GE10 .M378 2003)
Encyclopedia of global change : environmental change and human society (REF GE149 .E47 2002)
One planet, many people : atlas of our changing environment (REF ATLASES GE149 .O53 2005)
Encyclopedia of world environmental history (REF GF10 .E63 2004)
The environmental resource handbook (REF HC110.E5 E4989 2001)
Environmental law handbook (REF KF3775 .E55 2001)
Forest conservation policy : a reference handbook (REF SD412 .S26 2004)
The facts on file dictionary of environmental science (REF TD9 .W95 2007)

Reference materials are also available online via the web.

American Fact Finder (US Census Bureau)
CQ Researcher
The Ecology and National Resources Collection (University of Wisconsin Digital Collections)
Statistical Abstracts of the United States

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Quick Links

Using Interlibrary Loan and Universal Borrowing

Business Department homepage

   
Searching for books

Books in this library : Use the Library Catalog to find books owned by this library. You can search either by subject heading or keywords. Keep your search terms as broad as possible. For example, if your research question is:
How does the media affect voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections.
try searching "presidential elections" or "U.S.elections" as a keyword search. (HINT: put multi-word search terms in quotes)

Alternatively, use one of the catalog's keyword search options. Then look at the subject headings used in the records you retrieve. Is there one that describes what you're looking for? If so, click on it to find other books on your topic.

Books in other libraries : The Library Catalog allows you to identify books owned by other University of Wisconsin libraries. Click on Multi-Library Search to look for items held by other libraries in the UW System.

Electronic books : The Library's collection of electronic book is accessed though netLibrary. It includes approximately 2,000 recently books published scholarly books, which can be accessed online. The full-text of these books is searchable. If you search Shakespeare as a subject you will retrieve books analyzing his works.

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Locating articles

Step 1: Use an index to find citations to journal articles on your topic.
The periodical indexes listed below will help you find citations to journal articles and other publications in business. You may search for articles by subject headings, keywords, or by author. Note that most indexes do NOT include the full-text of articles. Therefore, you'll need to go on to step 2, below, once you have selected some citations.

Academic (Lexis-Nexis). A specialty database supplying full text news and published information for business, legal, and medical research. Coverage includes indexing and full text for more than 6000 English language resources including newsletters, magazines, trade journals, scholarly journals, newswire services and international news sources.

Academic Source Premier (Ebsco) Coverage of more than 4,600 journals in general academic, business, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multicultural fields. There is full text for over 1,000 journals

Biological Abstracts is an essential resource for research on life science topics from botany to microbiology to pharmacology, serving to connect researchers with critical journal coverage. It enables librarians, faculty and students to easily retrieve references to research reported in life science journals. More than 5,000 international journals are monitored to ensure that virtually every life science topic is covered, including agriculture, biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, ecology, the environment, microbiology, neurology, pharmacology, public health and toxicology.

Environment Complete contains all of the content available in Environment Index, as well as full text for 400 journals, including many of the most used journals in the discipline, such as Environment (back to 1975), Ecologist, Conservation Biology, etc. Environment Complete also provides full text for 80 monographs, such as Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (3 volumes), Advances in Water Treatment & Environmental Management, etc. Further, the database offers full text for the conference papers of the North American Association of Environmental Education.

General Science Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles of at least one column in length from English-language periodicals published in the United States and Great Britain plus the full text of selected periodicals. Periodical coverage includes popular science magazines as well as professional journals. General Science Full Text also covers The New York Times Science Section (published weekly on Tuesday). Abstracting coverage begins with periodicals published in March 1993. Abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source articles. Full text coverage begins in January 1995.

Science Citation Index A multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the sciences. It indexes more than 5,700 major journals across 164 scientific disciplines. Cited Reference Searching allows searching for articles that cite a known author or work because the information stored about each article includes the article's cited reference list (often called its bibliography).

Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide is the world’s largest index to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Coverage includes more than 670,388 bibliographic records many of which include abstracts. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, zoology, taxonomy and much more.

Off-campus access: These databases are licensed by the Library for the use of the University's students, faculty, and staff, and most can be accessed from off-campus. If you are asked for a password when trying to access a database, consult this page for more information.

Step 2: Now that you have a citation to an article, does the Library own the journal? First, check the Library Catalog, to see if the Library subscribes to the journal and has the issue you need. Search the catalog by Journal Title. Next, check the UWP Periodical List to see if they are available full-text, often through databases such as Ebsco's Academic Search or if you have a complete citation, try the Citation Linker.

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Web resources

Although you can search the World Wide Web by keyword using a search engine, browsing the Web sites below can help you find more authoritative information in the field of environmental studies.

AcademicInfo - Environmental History and Environmental Studies

Biodiversity and Conservation - Hypertext Book by Peter J. Bryant

Biodiversity Hotspots

Committee on Natural Resources - US House of Representatives

Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Earth Trends - Environmental Information

EcoLex - The Gateway to Environmental Law

Ecological Topics - National Biological Information Infrastructure

Environmental Directory

Environmental Protection Agency

National Library for the Environment

Natural Resources - US Geological Service

Natural Resources Conservation Service - US Department of Agriculture

National Science Digital Library

Science.gov

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

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Citing Sources APA Style

When preparing a project in dramatic arts, follow the recommendation of your instructor when you cite the sources you have used. Instructors may recommend one of the format styles described in these publications and Web sites.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). (Reference Desk BF76.7 .P83 2001) presents the APA style.

How to Cite References Using APA Style. This online guide, prepared by the UW-Parkside Library, is also available in paper format the Guide Rack near the Reference Desk.

APA Documentation This online guide to the 5th edition of the APA manual was prepared by UW-Madison's Writing Center.

APA Style Electronic Media This guide from the Cardinal Stritch Library complements the guide above. (PDF Document)

Electronic Reference Formats Recommended by the American Psychological Association This APA Web page updates the Publication Manual above. Use it if you need to cite a journal article found in one of the Library's full-text databases.

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UW-Parkside Library • P.O. Box 2000 • Kenosha, WI 53141 • (262) 595-2360
Created 07/2008 by Kim Bartosz, liaison to the Business Department
Last Update: 07/15/2008