Home - 21W.035 - Fall 2012 Science Writing and New Media

Useful library & course pages

Library locations for this class

The primary collections for literature on engineering and science will be found in Barker (engineering) and Hayden Libraries (Science).

Map of Library Locations

Discover writings

There are a wealth of resources to support your research on science and engineering topics. The list below covers some of the starting points we reviewed in the class session.

Research Guides
A list of guides that highlight key resources and starting points organized by discipline (eg Physics) or content type (eg GIS).
Vera
Vera is the primary gateway for the libraries' electronic subscriptons.
Barton Library Catalog
Use Barton to find books for background and context about your topic.
MIT Worldcat
MIT's WorldCat allows you to search the MIT Libraries catalog and library catalogs worldwide, and borrow books from a number of other libraries.
Compendex and Inspec
You can search both these databases in Engineering Village to find articles, conference papers, and reports in all fields of engineering, computer science, and physics.
PubMed
PubMed indexes more than 3500 journals in biomedical research, neurosciences and clinical medicine.
Web of Science
Indexes high-impact science, social science, engineering, art & humanities research journals.
Knovel
Search for scientific & engineering information via an extensive collection of engineering & scientific e-books. Includes interactive tables & graphs.
Lexis Nexis Academic
Lexis Nexis Academic provides access to the full-text of many news, business, and legal resources, including the New York Times.

Find articles and books

Get articles:

Try the SFX button (or any link that says full text) in the database, if one is present. Note: For this to work in PubMed or Google Scholar use the Vera PubMed url: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/pubmed or Google Scholar url: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/googlescholar/.
If you can't link via SFX, search Vera for electronic access. Finally, search for the name of the journal in Barton.
If we don't own the journal Interlibrary Borrowing is an option, with most articles delivered in 1-2 workdays.

Get books:

Use Barton to search by authors, titles, and keywords.
If MIT does not own what you need search MIT WorldCat, and request books from the Boston Library Consortium or Borrow Direct Group (allow 3-5 workdays). Interlibrary Borrowing is also an option, but can take 3 days to 2 weeks, so plan ahead!

Remember to evaluate your sources, and note the full information for your references: you'll need this for your bibliography. Use a citation manager (like RefWorks)I to help you manage your readings and generate your bibliography.