1. Introduction

2. Why use the Library?

3. Library Password

4. Boolean Searching

5. Library Catalog
  • How to Find Books
  • How to Find Journals

6. Databases
  • Search for Articles
  • Find Articles

7. Professional Resources

8. Web Resources

9. How to Get Help

10. Library Exercise

2. Why use the Library?

You might be thinking "Why should I bother using the Library when everything is on the the web?" One of most important things we hope you'll learn from this tutorial is that everything is NOT on the web.

And everything on the web is NOT free. Many Library resources are now available via the web, but they are not freely available to the general public because of subscription and licensing requirements.

Here are some important reasons to use Library resources:

• Find quality information: Librarians carefully review and select the most appropriate resources based on reliability, relevance to the curriculum, and value to academic research.
   
• Save time:
  • Avoid all the useless, repetitive links retrieved by search engines.
  • Don't reinvent the wheel! Find out what's been done in the past.
     
• Find the resources your professors want you to use.
   
• Learn about tools used by professional engineers: handbooks, journals, and more.
   
• Professional assistance: Librarians and staff are available to help you with all of your research and information needs.
   
• Lots of expensive stuff; free to you!

While the primary goal of this tutorial is to introduce you to resources found in and through the Library, we don't want to discourage you from using the Web. A great deal of really useful engineering can be found on the Web. We'll discuss useful websites for engineering research later, in Section 8 of this Tutorial.

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