Earth & Environmental Systems: Environmental Studies

ISU Department of Earth & Environmental Systems - "... provides students with the opportunity to explore a wide range of environmental, earth, and human systems. Anthropologists, geographers, and geologists, investigate fundamental questions that relate directly to the mechanics of the Earth’s physical processes, the spatial organization of societies, the study of human diversity, and the interaction between people and their environment."

Sierra Club - "Founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is now the nation's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization -- with more than two million members and supporters."  One of its chapters is in Indiana.

US Environmental Protection Agency - The EPA web site has links to resources on environmental issues, laws and regulations, vocational guidance and much more. 

Electronic Books (eBooks) and print books are accessible through the library's online catalog.   

Looking for a specific article, you have two choices:

1. You can check to see whether we have access to an electronic version of your article.  From the library's home page, click on "Articles and Databases" below the image.  Then, click on the "Electronic Resources Home" link under the Search button.   (Here's a shortcut.)  In the goldenrod area marked "Find e-journals, eBooks, and media by title or identifying number," enter the first few words of the title of the journal you want. (Make sure the drop-down menu reads "Title begins with."   If we have it, you'll be taken to a page with links to databases that provide access to your journal.  Just pick one that includes the date of your article. 
2. If we don't have electronic access, we may still have access to a print version of the journal.  Simply search SycaMORE Research for the journal title.  Once you've located the journal, note the call number, find the correct volume/issue or year and proceed to your article.  Nearly all bound print and microform periodicals are in the library's basement, two floors below ground level. 

Journals by subject, the best way to retrieve articles is through a database which indexes the articles in the environmental science literature.  ISU's library's three best databases for environmental issues are:

• Gale's Environmental Studies (Formerly GREENR) - Gale's Environmental Studies considers these topics from a worldwide perspective.  It indexes scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, videos and other resources.  An unusual feature is its interactive world map which permits you to focus on a particular area.  This is a fine source for sustainability issues.
• GreenFILE - This EBSCO database covers how humans affect the environment.  You can use its subject terms to narrow your search, and you can limit your results to scholarly articles as well.  It addresses the environment's connections to other discipllines such as agriculture, heath and technology.  It indexes more than 200 journals, government documents and reports. 
• ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Database - This database contains agricultural and environmental science related full-text articles, granular access to figures and tables within articles, environmental impact statements, and the entire range of bibliographic records from the Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management (ESPM) database. ESPM provides comprehensive coverage of the environmental sciences drawn from over 10,000 periodicals including scientific journals, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books and government publications.  The database also includes the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) database. Also included is the National Library of Medicine's TOXLINE database, which provides citations and abstracts from the core literature of toxicology.  The National Agricultural Library's AGRICOLA database, which covers topics in agriculture and agricultural economics, is included as well. 

Here are a few other databases you may find useful:

• Academic Search Complete - A general-interest EBSCO academic database which includes a lot of info on geography, meteorology and climatology.  

• Earthshots - Produced by the US Geological Survey,Earthshots uses Landsat data to document how people and nature are changing the surface of the planet.  Each Earthshot page outlines the changes revealed by the satellite images to a particular location.  The data go back to 1972. 

• ISI Web of Science (also called the Web of Knowledge) - This database is especially valuable for determining who's citing an article you found useful.  Chances are, the articles which cite an article you like will be useful for your research, too.  You can search by topic, author and more.  Coverage goes back to 1984.  

• JSTOR - Great for older materials!  Coverage extends back into the 19th Century and even earlier.  Use "Advanced Search" and select "Environmental Science" journals. You may find other subject headings relevant as well. 

• Sycamore Scholars - A data repository featuring the work of faculty, staff and students at ISU.  This is a great place to look for recent ISU theses and dissertations.

• Water Resources of the United States - Maintained by the US Geological Survey, its mission is to "collect and disseminate reliable, impartial, and timely information that is needed to understand the nation's ater resources."

More Detailed Database Info ENVI 460 students will find useful:

1. Gale's Environmental Studies
   1. Lots of good environmental options right from the basic screen
      1. Note not limited to articles; podcasts, position papers, TV shows,  maps, other items included
   2. Advanced search lets you limit to peer-reviewed articles
      1. Searching by author – just plug in the first and last names – will find all instances where those names occur within two words.  Example: James Speer
      2. AND, OR, NOT
         1. Nesting supported
      3. Truncation: * (need at least three letters to left)
      4. Wildcards:
         1. ? – subs for 1 letter
         2. ! – subs for 1 or 0 letters – good for alternative spellings
      5. Proximity operators
         1. WX – words separated by X words, in that order
         2. NX – words separated by X words, in any order
         3. Can’t use proximity operators and nesting
            1. E.g., can’t do tree! N5 (death! or disease!)
            2. Can do (tree! N5 death!) OR (tree! N5 disease!)
      6. Subjects – must be Gale Cengage subjects – LCSH without subdivisions, along with people, companies, products, organizations, geographic locations, events, artistic and other published works, statutes and case numbers. 
         1. Search on trees and disease above gets no hits when limited to subjects
         2. To find relevant subjects:
            1. Do a keyword search
            2. Choose an item that’s relevant
            3. Look at “related subjects” on the left. 
      7. Limits
   3. Note the options when you retrieve articles
   4. World Map – lets you start with a specific region to study. 
      1. Clunky. 
      2. You click on a country and see all the environmental items associated with it.  Not good for specifics. 
   5. Can create an account if you want to create marked lists, search alerts, etc. 
   6. It’s a Gale Cengage database – works like the others, such as Biography in Context

2. GreenFile
   1. EBSCOhost database – works the same as the others such as Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, etc. 
   2. AND, OR, NOT 
   3. Proximity searching
      1. Nx – find terms within x words of each other, regardless of order.  Great for names!  (N5 is default.)
      2. Wx – find terms within x words of each other, in the same order you put them in.
   4. Truncation: *
   5. Wildcards
      1. ? To replace a character – e.g.,  wom?n finds woman or women.  T??th finds tooth or teeth (or truth). 
      2. # replaces 1 or 0 characters - e.g., fav#r finds favor or favour (British spelling)
   6. Subject Terms
      1. Lets you use the same vocabulary as the database
      2. Also pulls up articles that have been assigned those descriptors
      3. Good and bad – may miss good articles that only mention topic and don’t have the descriptor; on the other hand, if you’re getting lots of hits, this is a good way to narrow them
   7. Indexes (Indices)
      1. Under “More”
      2. Can select more search options, including geographic name or people
      3. Here, the proximity and logical operators don’t work. 
      4. E.g., search for “Gates, Bill” rather than “Bill n1 gates”
   8. My EBSCOhost
      1. Lets you save items to a folder
      2. Lets you set up alerts
   1. Help is good
3. ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Database (formerly ProQuest Environmental Science Collection)
   1. Prefer Advanced Search
   2. Boolean AND, OR, NOT
   3. n/x – terms must be within x words of each other, in any order
   4. pre/x – terms must be within x words of each other, in specific order
   5. Help screens are good
   6. My Research lets you save items to folders, set up alerts, other useful tools