Library Research Guide for Chemistry Classes

The Online Catalog

Accessible through the College of the Canyons Web site, the online catalog will show you what items the library has in its collection and where the items are located.  To find resources on chemistry you may conduct a subject search on "Chemistry" and select from one of the many titles listed. You may also select related subject headings such as "Chemistry, Inorganic"  or "Biochemistry."

The online catalog will provide the following information:  the call number of the material, the material type (i.e. book, DVD, or pamphlet), any special location for the items (reserve room, media reserves, reference, etc.), and the availability of the item or items. 

Selected print resource:

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics   Ref QD 65 .H3 2000/01 (this item may be photocopied but cannot be taken out of the library)

The World Wide Web

The Internet can be an incredible research tool, if you use it with care.  The Internet has often been compared to a giant library -- but it's much closer to a giant warehouse. When using the numerous subject guides and search engines you have at your disposal, it is important to recognize the qualitative differences between them.

General subject guides such as those on portals like Yahoo tend to organize the information into a hierarchical structure, dividing the information into categories and subcategories. The Web sites that are featured on these guides run the range from commercial sites to  personal Web pages to academic resources created by college professors. Yahoo’s index makes no distinction between them. To make your search results more exact (for example, if you want to search only for web pages created by an academic institution) you will need to utilize a real search engine like Google .  Search engines utilize programs called robots or spiders to create huge indexes consisting of millions of Web pages. On a search engine you have the capability to restrict your findings by domain name (.edu, .com, .gov) and exact date of creation.

There also exist general subject guides that have been created by subject experts such as researchers and college professors. Infomine , the creation of the University of California, is an example of an academic subject guide. Like commercial guides, the information on Infomine is organized into categories and subcategories.  You may want to select the  directory "Physical Sciences, Engineering, Computing & Math". From here you may browse the Table of Contents to access links to Web sites and pages concerning Chemistry. All of the information you find on Infomine has been created or selected by a subject expert, usually a university researcher or professor. 

  ProQuest Direct

ProQuest Direct is an example of a subscription database on the Web, meaning that it is only accessible to certain users,  i.e. students and faculty at College of the Canyons.  ProQuest Direct is a database consisting of citations, abstracts and in many cases full-text articles from over ten thousand publications, including magazines, journals and newspapers.  It is available on all Web-accessible college computers and  may be accessed from your home computer by acquiring a password from the library, or your COC instructor.  From the library computers, click on the  ProQuest icon from the desktop screen. You may print the information, download it to a thumb drive, or email it to your personal email account.  Magazine and journal articles are an excellent source of information for research projects on scientific topics. 

Sample search: 

You are looking for an article about the nuclear accident in Chernobyl and its aftereffects. Open up ProQuest and click on the Advanced folder at the top of the page.  You will then see three search boxes in which you can type in your search term, "Chernobyl" in "Location" field.  You may select the searchable fields by clicking on the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the screen. To retrieve full-text results and scholarly articles only, check off the boxes at the bottom of the screen:

Viewing your results on ProQuest  

The Results Screen displays the articles in descending order, with the most recently published article appearing first. Next to the title of the article you will see a legend indicating whether or not the article is available full-text or only as an abstract (summary). In the example below several of the articles have been marked by clicking on the box next to the article title:

Once you have marked the selected articles, you can click on the My Research folder at the top of the screen . This will allow you to format your citations and email the article.

For information on citing your resources, please see the Web pages concerning MLA and APA.

Back to list of Library Research Guides