Work in Physics and Engineering often requires the finding of articles, research reports, books and other forms of written information (patents, unpublished conference papers, WWW documents, etc.). Learning your way around the various tools available to you at W&L will be useful in all your academic work, and developing strategies for searching will be useful no matter where you end up.

We'll use a single example (SQUIDs, or superconducting quantum interference devices) to explore the spectrum of resources you have at your fingertips. In most cases we'll search for keywords, then sort through the results looking for hints that could help to focus the search. Most of the items our searches will retrieve will be bibliographic records, pointers to journal articles and books that may be in our Library, or could be ordered by InterLibrary Loan (ILL); some will have abstracts which summarize content. A few databases provide the full text of articles.

The very first step in searching is to choose reasonable search terms. In our example the words 'quantum interference' seem to be at the heart of what we're investigating ('superconducting' is quite general; 'device' is so broad a term as to be useless for this purpose). The acronym SQUID is also useful, but somewhat complicated by the fact that 'squid' also refers (among other things) to a cephalopod which rarely interferes with quanta.


So how should we begin our search? Why not with what's closest? Try ANNIE first to see if we have books about 'quantum interference':
QUANTUM      is in 366   titles.
INTERFERENCE is in 39    titles.
Both "INTERFERENCE" and "QUANTUM" are in 0 title.
 Therefore "QUANTUM" is discarded.
 
A try for 'squid*' gets one item (the * gets squid/squids/squiddy, etc.):
 AUTHOR       Cousteau, Jacques Yves.
 TITLE        Pieuvres. English.
              Octopus and squid, the soft intelligence [by] Jacques-Yves
              Cousteau and Philippe Diole. Translated from the French 
              by J. F. Bernard.
 EDITION      [1st ed. in the U.S.A.] With 124 photos. in full color.
 PUBLISHER    Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday [1973]
 DESCRIPT     304 p. illus. (part col.) 27 cm.
 SERIES       The Undersea discoveries of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
 NOTE         Translation of Pieuvres.
 BIBLIOG.     Bibliography: p. [301]-302.
 SUBJECT      Octopus. 

    LOCATION               CALL NO.                       
1 > Leyburn Library        QL430.3.O2 C6813 1973
In short, the book route seems not profitable at W&L, though there are a number of reference books which are well worth a look (McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology [REF Q121 .M3 1992] has a good brief article on SQUIDs; I also found useful information in Encyclopedia of Physics and Technology [REF Q123.E4974], Encyclopedia of Analytical Science [REF QD71.5.E53], and Encyclopedia of Earth System Science [REF QE5.E514]. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia [REF Q121 .V3 1995] and Magill's Survey of Science --Applied Science [REF TA145 .M298 1993] are both usually good sources, but are not well supplied with material on superconductivity and neither mentions SQUIDs).
Next we'll try the most general of the periodical indexes, Periodical Abstracts Online, available from the ANNIE menu. This one has records from about 1500 general periodicals, including Science and Scientific American, and CAN be useful in the early stages of researching a topic. Here's what we get:
 You searched for the WORD: quantum interference          PERIODICAL 
ABSTRACTS
 9 entries found, entries 1-8 are:                   APPEARS IN          DATE
   1  Physics  : More than one mystery:  Ex Choice                    Jun 95
   2  More than one mystery : Quantum inter American Journal of Physi Jun 93
   3  Book reviews  : Superconducting Quant Contemporary Physics      Mar 93
   4  Quantum interference in a mesoscopic  Nature                    Jan 93
   5  Some Benefits of Quantum Interference Physics Today             May 92
   6  Quantum Interference Viewed in the Fr American Journal of Physi Feb 92
   7  Quantum Interference                  Science News              Dec 89
   8  Quantum Interference and the Aharonov Scientific American       Apr 89
   9  Quantum Interference Fluctuations in  Physics Today             Dec 88
Clearly there are some potentially useful articles here, but the keyword seach for 'squid*' produces a bingo if you're starting to learn about SQUIDs and want a general article:
 You searched for the WORD: squid*                        PERIODICAL 
ABSTRACTS
 118 entries found, entries 1-8 are:                 APPEARS IN          DATE
     1  6 lures every tacklebox should have : Boating                   Jul 95
     2  Detection of 14N and 35Cl in cocaine  Analytical Chemistry      Jul 95
     3  A dorsal light reflex in a squid      Journal of Experimental B May 95
     4  He seeks the giant squid              Popular Science           May 95
     5  Genetic variation in the neritic squi Marine Biology            Mar 95
     6  Detection and quantification of Vibri Journal of Bacteriology   Feb 95
     7  Flexible reproductive strategies in t Marine Biology            Jan 95
     8  Microencapsulation of squid oil with  Journal of Food Science   Jan 95
     9  Stochastic resonance and the benefits Nature                    Jan 95
    10  A vote for squid, beer, and Banco O'H Fortune                   Dec 94
    11  An ethogram of body patterning behavi Biological Bulletin       Dec 94
    12  High-resolution measurement of the ti Biological Bulletin       Dec 94
    13  SQUIDs cross a watershed              Nature                    Dec 94
    14  The inositol high-polyphosphate serie Proceedings of the Nation Dec 94
    15  Consumed by Calamari  : Squidding     Premiere                  Nov 94
    16  Characterization and solubilization o Biological Bulletin       Oct 94
    17  Crossing a squid and a seashell       Sea Frontiers             Oct 94
    18  Protein synthesis in nverve endings f Biological Bulletin       Oct 94
    19  Stalking the giant squid              Popular Mechanics         Sep 94
    20  Heating up some SQUIDS                Science                   Aug 94
    21  Mercury-based cuprate high-transition Science                   Aug 94
    22  Quantification of L-dopa and dopamine Biological Bulletin       Aug 94
    23  SQUIDs                          Scientific American    Aug 94
    24  Structural basis for wavelength discr Journal of Experimental B Aug 94
#23 is an intense 7 pages of general introduction to the technology and its applications, clear and concise --and NOT in the set retrieved by the 'quantum interference' search:
 AUTHOR       Clarke, John.
 TITLE        SQUIDs.
 APPEARS IN   Scientific American 1994, v271n2, Aug p. 46-53.
 
 SUMMARY      Short for superconducting quantum interference devices, SQUIDs
              constitute the first practical application of 
              high-temperature ceramic superconductors.  The probes 
              detect quantum changes in magnetic fields and therefore 
              have become indispensable in basic research.
 
 SUBJECT      Quantum theory.
 
 Holdings: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 
1 > Leyburn Library      PERIODICALS                                         
   LIB HAS: 40(1879)-43(1880),54(1886),62(1890),73(1895)-79(1898),89(1903)...
This record tells us some useful things about Periodical Abstracts Online:
At this point we should consider what the objective of our search is: do we want to gather a bibliography of books and articles, or find out about the current frontiers of research in the area under investigation, or follow the evolution of some particular thread within the general subject? Each objective suggests a different strategy in choosing amongst the numerous alternatives for searching, and what I'd like to do here is show you the breadth of what's possible instead of choosing one of the above alternatives.

We'll be looking at Liberty's Commercial Databases offerings, at the online catalogs of a number of research libraries, and at World Wide Web possibilities as well.


Here's the Commercial Databases menu on Liberty:
      Which database do you wish to access?
 
         1. UnCover
         2. FirstSearch
         3. Lexis/Nexis
 
        99. Return to Main Menu

There is no single source that has 'everything', and the canny searcher works with the strengths (and around the weaknesses) of multiple databases.
Online catalogs of universities with strong holdings in Physics and Engineering are also important sources to be aware of. Items you find by searching in these catalogs can be requested by InterLibrary Loan (as of course can articles from periodicals we don't have at W&L). Here are some searches from several online catalogs: The World Wide Web is another potentially fruitful source, though it is much less orderly than the databases and libraries described above. This link to various WWW sources could be greatly expanded with more exploring.