Go to our Reference Shelves and browse around the call numbers GE 1 - GE 350 [Environmental Sciences] TJ 163 [Power Resources, Energy Conservation] and TJ 807 - TJ 830 [Renewable Energy Sources]

Encyclopedia of Energy Technology and the Environment
Encyclopedia of Energy
Environmental Encyclopedia  
Environmental Encyclopedia [electronic resource]

The following reference source is older but may still be relevant for a historical perspective on energy and the environment.

To get started, you might try a keyword search in OASys. Be sure to notice the subject headings for the best items on your topic. Click on those headings to get more resources. Need more? Click over to LINK+ and continue your searching there. Need even more? WorldCat includes over 54 million entries from more than 45,000 libraries. You may place Interlibrary Loan requests. (Slower than LINK+)

Suggested Keyword Searches for this Course

Keywords will differ depending on the focus of your research. Here are some obvious examples.
 

keyword: energy
keyword: bio*
keyword: sustainable development
keyword: environment* AND energy

Tips:
Remember to be flexible with your terminology and try several different searches.
Use synonyms.
Truncate terms to retrieve records that mention all variations of the word in question.
To narrow search results, limit your search to certain locations [Book Stacks, Special Coll] or to specific Material Types [Elect. Resource, Text (Book)].
Caution: In a library catalog, keywords are usually found in the Notes, Title, and Subject Headings fields. Therefore, keyword searches may produce huge results or results that include the keyword(s) but be irrelevant to your topic.

Suggested Subject Headings for this Course

Biomass Energy
Energy
Photovoltaic Cells
Renewable Energy Sources
Solar Energy
Wind Power 

Advanced searches, combining subject headings with key words or phrases, yield a manageable number of targeted results. Here are a few examples:
[Subject] renewable energy sources AND [Any] bio*
[Subject] energy AND [Any] sustainable
[Subject] renewable energy sources AND [Any] (policy OR policies OR economics)

For more assistance with searching for books, please see Finding Books.

Selected Library Research Databases for CSP 57: 

Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science)
This Web of Science database allows you to find articles published since 1975 which cite articles or authors of interest to you. It fully indexes 5,900 major journals across 150 scientific disciplines. This resource replaces ISI Basic Science Index which indexed around 800 journals.

General Science Full Text (WilsonWeb)
Find citations, abstracts, and substantial full-text for science and technology articles appearing in journals and magazines from the U.S. and U.K.

PAIS International (CSA)
Public Affairs Information Service index of articles, books, conference proceedings, government documents, book chapters, and statistical directories covering contemporary social, economic, and political issues and the making and evaluating of public policy. Includes the PAIS Archive. Searches find citations to documents originally published and indexed from 1915 to the present. Links to full-text (when available).

LexisNexis Environmental
Find journal articles, conference papers, environmental news, laws, regulations, and hazardous materials information.

BioOne Abstracts & Indexes (CSA)
A convenient search interface for finding articles that are available full-text in BioOne. Search this database alone, or combine it with other databases in CSA Biological & Medical Sciences Collection.

Chemical Abstracts (Student Edition)
Find citations and abstracts to articles in widely-held chemistry journals and to dissertations.

If you are pursuing a multi-disciplinary approach, be sure to look at the wide range of databases available here at Oxy. DATABASES by Topic.

For more assistance with searching our databases, please see Finding Articles.

Some Criteria for Evaluating Information

Energy Citations Database
www.osti.gov/energycitations/

Environmental Protection Agency
http://epa.gov/

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
www.ornl.gov/sci/besd/systemsbiology.shtml

U.S. Department of Energy
http://energy.gov/

Policy Pointers
www.policypointers.org/

Try a different search engine or a subject directory found on our Public Internet Search Tools page. For example, go to the Librarian's Index to the Internet, and try this search: energy AND environment.

 For more assistance with searching for web sites, please see Finding Public Web Pages.

We welcome your Comments and Suggestions.

Return to Top