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CEE/EGR 102: Engineering in the Modern World: Secondary sources

Guide to library resources, print and electronic, to explore social and political issues raised by engineering innovations.

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Before diving into a specialized subject database, you might want to try a broad interdisciplinary database, like our new Articles+ service which searches across multiple databases for scholarly articles, magazine articles or news items.
 
Use the Search Refining features to limit results by subject terms, publication date and publication type.

Refining results 

Beyond general...

If multidisciplinary databases don't bring in the desired results, browse the listings of databases under specific subjects, such as History of Science, Politics, Sociology or Engineering & Technology to identifiy the best place to search for journal articles.

For the historical literature start with:

A few starting points for the technical literature related to your topics are suggested below:

  • Compendex or Engineering Index - this is an extensive bibliographic database of engineering literature. Indexes journal papers and conference proceedings published since 1884 to date. The broad subject areas of engineering and applied science are comprehensively represented.
  • For civil engineering literature, browse or search the publications of the Institute of Civil Engineers (UK) and of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE Research Library). 
  • For electrical engineering literature, browse or search the publications of IEEE.
  • For mechanical engineering literature, browse or search the publications of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

When searching databases, look for the FindIt@PUL button. This will lead you to a menu of options for acquiring the specific paper or article. You may be able to download the full-text immediately, or to submit an Interlibrary Loan request if the Main Catalog gives no results.

General and multidisciplinary resources

Encyclopedias are always a good starting point for any research. AccessScience, The McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology combines review articles, with recent research updates, biographical information and a dictionary. A collection of reference works that may be of use is the Gale Virtual Reference Library, which includes encyclopedias on a variety of topics. In the engineering library's reference section, we also have Building the world : an encyclopedia of the great engineering projects in history (call number Engineering Library (ST): Reference T56 .I44 2006).

Handbooks are concise reference books that provide specific information about a subject. Through CRCnetBASE we have access to handbooks in engineering, material science, clean tech and other areas.

Biographical sources should be consulted when researching inventors and innovators. American National Biography Online is an excellent resource.

For worldwide business and economic information use ABI/Inform.

Browse the library's newspaper collections for in-depth news coverage (both current and historical).