Contents:

Objective
Part I -- What is an Index?
Part II -- What is a Bibliography Anyway?
Step 1:  Locate the Publication
Step 2:  Determine the Type of Publication
Step 3: Search Each Reference
Step 4:  Print the results & Analyze
Some Helpful Suggestions
The Finished Product
The Bibliography
Other Useful Links

Work in the same teams as for the Scavenger Hunt using the same jobs (manager/encourage, recorder/reflector and technical assistant/skeptic); however, rotate them so a different person performs each task/role. If the assignment is a cooperative effort, everyone will work to help the team do the best job possible. You will turn in only one assignment. Everyone earns the same score.

The assignment assumes that you know how to use Pitt-cat to find the call number and location of a book; however, you may use Pitt-Cat in the library, from the computers in the labs, or on the web from your own computer, etc. You will likely need to use other catalogs to locate material outside the Pitt system.  Suggestions on how to locate these are included. The completed assignment is due in class Wednesday, January 24, 2007.

Part I -- What is an Index?

No doubt you have flipped to the end of a book (perhaps your chem text book) to see if a topic of interest is covered and on what page. Did you ever wonder how the terms were selected when the index was "built"? Turns out that data bases (Chem Abstracts, Applied Science and Technology Index, Expanded Academic Index, Current Contents, etc.) also have indexes. And someone (or some group of people) made the "unilateral" decision of what terms would be included in the index. This is your chance to build an index. This part of the exercise has an individual part and a class part.

• Individual part - Do this one on your own at your leisure:
  • Find the following article: "Lights and Lasers Invade the Clinic", Rowe, Aaron. Chem. Eng. News 2012, 90 (Jan. 2), 25 - 27. (See:  http://cen-online.org/articles/90/i1/Lights-Lasers-Invade-Clinic.html)
  • The first time you read it, just skim it. Note that it is not a research article.
  • Read the article a second time. This time circle words that you think would be good words to put in an index for this article. Suppose you were looking for this article: What terms would you look under. Limit your list to five or six words.
• The Class part - in class Wednesday, January 25, 2012
  • The manager for each group will put the group's list of "index terms" on the board.
  • So … did we all come up with exactly the same list of "index terms"?

Isn't that the "works cited" page of a research paper? Yes, it is; however, it is also a powerful tool in locating material on the topic of your paper. One way to find more information on a topic (or discover who else is doing research in that field) is to check the bibliography of a key paper or review article. Sometimes the most useful background information on the subject can be found in the first 8 to 15 references (often called the "leading references").

Look at the bibliography found at the end of this document. The references come from a wide range of sources that are valuable resources in the chemical literature. Suppose you wanted to obtain a (physical) copy of each of these items.  Where would you go?  Many of these are available in the Owen Library; almost all of them are available in the PITT system. Your task is to locate these references. In other words, find a physical location that would make a copy available to you. You don't actually have to bring it to class, just let everybody know where they can go to find the item.

• Divide the list among the members of both groups. There are thirteen people in the class and the exact same number of items on the list; it should be pretty easy!. Begin by using Pitt-Cat  to locate each of the references; you can probably find all of them using title and author. More specifically, your task is to find the physical location of each book, journal, Ph.D. thesis, government publication, etc. listed below. Some questions to guide you in your search:
  • Will you find the book or journal on the shelves in Owen Library?
  • Is the journal or book available at another library in the Pitt system? Which one?
  • Is it possible to locate the journal article on-line?
  • If not available locally, how could you find a library that has the reference in its holdings? It might be in another academic library in Pennsylvania that is a member of PALCI (Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc.)
  • If not available from a library that is a member of PALCI, where might you look? World Cat is a listing of all hold ings of (almost) all libraries
• For each reference, determine the type of publication. You can usually figure this out based on the way it is listed in Pitt-Cat. Perhaps you will want to do this as a group as you distribute the responsibility.
• Then search each reference. Start with Pitt-Cat; it is essential that you use the Long version. For those items not in the Pitt Library system, start with the other academic libraries in Pittsburgh, then try PALCI, the on line catalogs for other Universities in the area or World Cat (see suggestions below). Use the table below to guide you in choosing the best search terms:

• Print the result of your search - that way you have it "for keeps".
  • Note the year of publication and country of publication books and journals  (not all publications in English are produced in the USA!).
  • Carefully examine your print out. You will note that it has a number of "fields". Circle them. You may want to compare notes with the other people in your group: Did you identify all of the fields?

Some note, ideas, suggestions …

• You can do much of your searching from the WWW
  • Questions about what you get from the card catalog?  Check the Library Guides and Database Guides from the Pitt Library!
  • Start with the Pitt Library System Home Page.  It will send you just about anywhere you need to go.  For example you can find:
    • You can borrow from other libraries using E-ZBorrow
    • Links to Book Resources and other Library Catalogs, including other academic libraries in Pittsburgh
    • The Library of Congress
    • The World Catalog (World Cat), a listing of all holdings of (almost) all libraries.
    • To find articles from the databases and on-line journals.
  • Thesis and doctoral dissertations are usually only held at the institution which granted the degree. Your best bet for locating these is to find that university's library on the WWW (most of them have on-line catalogs just like Pitt). Sometimes its easy to "guess" the main URL, then navigate the site to find the library page.  Alternatively use Yahoo's Directory of Colleges & Universities.  BTW -- it is possible to request a thesis by ILL, however, before putting in a request, see if you can get a copy of the abstract. This will help you decide if it contains information that you really want. T You can find dissertations abstracts at ProQuest's Digital Dissertation.   A phone call (or email) to the custodial library will generally render a photocopy of the abstract. Note this link will only work from a computer connected through  the Pitt network (ie, ResNet, the computers in E&S, the library, the computing labs).
  • What is a "field" - Each type of information has a field label". You know and have probably used many of these: Title, author, subject. There are others that you may have noted, but not realized can be searched: publisher, series, alternate title, indexed in, call number. You can search on many of these also (just need to know the "code").
  • What is the difference between a key word and the subject ?
    • When you use the command to search keywords you are searching all of the fields of all the citations. This is very helpful because it gets you started with a broad search.
    • The Subject (thesaurus, descriptor, identifier, controlled vocabulary) is very specific; certainly more precise. The official subjects are defined by the Library of Congress. You can see the LC subjects for an citation in Pitt-Cat by looking at the Long View.
    • If you start your search (even for the sources listed in the bibliography) using the key word, you can then find the official subjects. This will help you be more precise in your search.

• Part I -- You don't need to turn in anything.  However, the manager does need to have a list to put on the board
• Part II -- For each reference, turn in the print out of your search. Also list the following for each item in the bibliography:
  • The Library where you might obtain a hard copy of the reference. For on-line sources, give the complete URL of the source and the method you used to locate it.
  • Call number where appropriate
  • A list of the fields on the print out
• Complete a Group Assessment.  You can download a MSWord file. 

1. Gallium Nitride and Related Materials II, Proceedings of the Materials Research Society Symposium, San Francisco, CA, April 1 - 4, 1997; Abernathy, C.R.; Amano, H.; Zolper, J.C., Ed.; Materials Research Society: Pittsburgh, PA, 1997.
2. Malosh Thomas J.; Wilson Scott R.; Shapley John R. J. Organomet. Chem. 2009, 694, 3331-3337.
3. Szczepura, Lisa F. "Octahedral hexanuclear transition metal clusters: Novel small molecule transformations" in  Abstracts of Papers, 240^th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, United States, August 22-26, 2010; American Chemical Society: Washington, D.C.; 2010; INOR 198.
4. An, J; Farha, O K; Huppk J T' Pohl, E; Yeh, J I; Rosi, N L Nature Communications 2012, 3, 604.
5. Villegas, John M.; Stoyanov, Stanislav R.; Rillema, D. P. Inorg. Chem. 2002, 41, 6688-6694.
6. Kingsborough, R.P.; Swager, T.W. Prog. Inorg. Chem. 1999, 48, 123-231.
7. Jones, W E; Chiguma, J; Hagerman, M E; Pachamutha, A; Santos, D Materials 2010, 3 (2), 1478-1496.
8. Guinovart, J.J.; Barbera, A.; Rodriguesz-gil, J.E. U. S. Patent 5,595,763, 1997; Chem. Abstr. 1997, 126, 1448554.
9. Molybdenum Enzymes, Cofactors, and Model Systems; Stiefel, E. I.; Coucouvanis, D.; Newton, W. E., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 535; American Chemical Society: Washington, D.C., 1993.
10. Spiro, Thomas G.; Zgierski, Marek Z.; Kozlowski, Pawel M.. Coord. Chem. Rev. 2001, 219-221, 923-936.
11. "Preparation and characterization of novel carbon-supported and ceramic nanocomposite materials" Moore, Joshua T.. Ph. D. Thesis, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2003.
12. Kroneck, P. M. H.; Beuerle, J.; Schumacher, W. In Degradation of Environmental Pollutants by Microorganisms and their Metalloenzymes; Sigel, H..; Sigel, A., Eds.; Metal Ions in Biological Systems 28; M. Dekker: New York , 1992; 455-505.
13. Llanguri, R.; Morris, J.J.; Stanley, W.C.; Bell-Loncella, E.T.; Turner, M.; Boyko, W.J.; Bessel, C. A.. Inorg. Chim. Acta, 2001, 315, 53-65.
14. Jordan, Michael, Brewer, Karen J. "Electrochemistry" http://www.chem.vt.edu/chem-dept/brewer/chem-ed/4414/tutorials/electrochem/ECHEM1.HTML (January 16, 2003)

Useful Links

• How to reach Dr. Bell-Loncella
• Links dealing with the Research Project
  • Project Resource Page
  • Project Schedule
• Other (potentially useful) resources
  • A few words about Cooperative Learning
  • To get the most out of your text book, see Professor Dave Finster's (Wittenberg University) advice on How to Read a Science Textbook
  • Encyclopedia of Instrumental Methods - tutorials descsribing instrumental methods of analysis.
• Center Point for General Chemistry
• Chem 0080 Home Page
• Starting point for Prep Chem
• Starting point for Health Professions Chem
• Inorganic Chemistry (Chem 1131) Home Page
• The Academic Success Center
• Chemistry Department Home Page  

Elisabeth T. Bell-Loncella
112B Engineering & Science Bldg		Department of Chemistry
Voice: 814.269.2904	etbell@pitt.edu	University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
FAX: 814.269.7261	www.pitt.edu/~etbell	Johnstown, PA 15904