Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and biographical guides are useful for a quick review of a topic, a quotation, a short description of a mathematical concept, or a biography of a mathematician. Here are just a few examples of good print and digital sources; you can also browse by call numbers, so for more biographical sources, look at QA28 for example. Baker/Berry Ref is on the first floor of Berry, Baker/Berry Cook is on the 3rd floor of Berry, and Kresge Library is on the 3rd floor of Fairchild Hall.
Dictionary of Scientific Biography Contains scholarly summaries of the person's life and work, including excellent bibliographies of works by and about the person. Biography is one way to explore the history of a concept.
Kresge Ref. and Baker Berry Ref. Q141 .D5
Notable Women in Mathematics: a Biographical Dictionary
Baker Berry Cook QA28 .N68 1998
Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von Neumann Very readable biographic profiles; entries include brief bibliographies.
Baker Berry Cook QA28 .J36 2002
Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences (2 vols.) Clearly written articles discuss mathematical problems and concepts in historical and cultural context. Each article provides an annotated bibliography of sources.
Baker Berry Cook QA21 .C645 1994
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online Online version of the 10-volume Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Can be browsed by philosophical themes, philosophies, and historical periods. Full text entries can be searched by keyword, title, contributor, or bibliography.
Search the Dartmouth library catalogto locate books, journals, and other items in the collections of all the Dartmouth libraries. Search by subject (using Library of Congress subject headings) or keywords; you can also search by author, or by title.
Think about the terms you use in any search, and come up with multiple ways of asking your question. Many bibliographic databases, including the library catalog and the Wilson indexes, use strictly controlled terms to describe the subject content of materials. Being aware of these subject terms can help you focus your search with great precision. Ask a librarian for help with determining the best subject and keyword terms to use for your topic!
Below are a sampling of Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings that you may find useful, depending on your particular topic.
Tip: Note that the results of a subject search are listed alphabetically, by default. For a listing that shows most recent publications first, choose "Limit/Sort," then "Sort Results by Year."
Another Good Tip: if you're not sure of the exact Library of Congress Subject Heading, use a Keyword search to locate a few items that are relevant to your topic. Then use the Subject Headings (hyperlinked in the catalog and many databases) associated with those items to lead you to more relevant materials.
Articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers can be found using article indexes (searchable databases of article records). In many cases these indexes link through to full-text articles (look for the ArticleLinker icon); if not, use the Library's Catalog to locate the source of the article. Note that the Catalog does not contain records for individual articles.
Selected indexes relevant to mathematical and philosophical topics are listed here. See eResources for a complete listing of electronic indexes, databases, and other eResources licensed by Dartmouth.
General Science Abstracts Indexes about 250 popular and scholarly science and multidisciplinary journals, including: Mathematical Intelligencer, American Mathematical Monthly, College Mathematics Journal, Mathematics Magazine, American Scientist, and PNAS. Also indexes articles on science topics from the New York Times. Covers 1984- present. Humanities Abstracts Indexes about 350 popular and scholarly journals in the humanities; covers music, anthropology, philosophy, religion, literature, including: Philosophy of Science, Isis. Book Review Digest Provides descriptive summaries of books as well as excerpts of book reviews, with complete book review citations and all book reviews from other Wilson indexes. Books appear with all their reviews grouped together. Biography Index Indexes periodicals, books, and other sources of biographical articles. Biographics cover all times and subject areas.
Indexes and abstracts journal articles, books, and book chapters in philosophy and related fields from 1940 to the present. Includes non-English journal articles and books. Subjects include philosophy of science and mathematics.
Searchable full-text of many scholarly journals from the beginning of the journal to the last five years. Collections include General Sciences, Mathematics and Philosophy. Journal titles include American Mathematical Monthly, Philosophical Review, and Science.
Covers 5,300 journals in the basic and applied sciences, including medicine, engineering, mathematics and computer science. Years covered are 1900-present. Updated weekly. Search features include: cited reference searching, current awareness searching, keyword searching across all files, related records linking, interdisciplinary searching, and number of times a paper was cited. Searching "This week's update" or "Latest 2 weeks" or "Latest 4 weeks" or "All years" or "Year selected" are possible date limits.
The library has many electronic journals which you can find using the Library Catalog; below are a sampling of journals in the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Also see: Mathematical conversations : selections from The mathematical intelligencer / compiled by Robin Wilson, Jeremy Gray. New York : Springer, c2001.
(Note: for years Martin Gardner had a column in Scientific American on mathematical games.)
Baker Berry T1 .S5 Latest 5 years in stacks; current issues in Serials Reading Room Storage 1846-1973; v. 2-221 Dana Journals 1950-present; v. 183- Kresge Journals 1954-present; v. 190-
Internet Searching Guide -- Go to this site to find descriptions, links, and evaluations of different search engines (e.g., Google, Scirus, Scitopia, Vivísimo) Always evaluate the source of your information before you use it in a paper, particularly if it is a non-reviewed or non-refereed Web site. Always cite your Web sources as you would cite printed resources!
If you are tempted to try Google for your research, consider using Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a search engine that includes mostly scholarly materials, such as books, journal articles, dissertations and reports. The Resources@Dartmouth link within Google Scholar goes to Dartmouth's ArticleLinker connection to our library resources.
Selected Web sites in the history and philosophy of mathematics
The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive An award-winning site from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Covers a wide range of mathematical topics, and is particularly strong in the history of mathematics. Contains biographies of more than 1300 mathematicians, cross-referenced to articles on historical topics. Provides an annotated list of mathematics links.
The Mathematical Atlas "... a collection of short articles designed to provide an introduction to the areas of modern mathematics and pointers to further information ..." Search, or browse by hierarchical subject headings. (Note, in particular, subject areas 01: History and biography, and 03: Mathematical logic and foundations.)
Directories, or annotated guides, to selected Internet resources. Browse by topic headings, or search.
The Math Forum's Internet Mathematics Library is an annotated catalog of mathematics web sites. From Drexel University.
Search, or browse by topic category (eg, Society: Philosophy: Philosophy of Science: Mathematics ). Sites are annotated and cross-referenced. The directory is constructed and maintained, in the spirit of the open-source movement, by volunteer editors.
The Scout Report Archives Search, or browse by subject headings, over this collection of over seven years' worth of critical annotations of selected Internet sites, mailing lists, and other online resources.
Style guides provide accepted standards to follow when preparing research papers for publication. Sourcesis the Dartmouth College general guide to getting started with citing sources, and contains required reading about plagiarism and when, and how, to cite material you are using for a paper or presentation.
Reference management programs allow you to build a personal database of your references to articles, books, websites - any information source - and then easily create bibliographies and reference lists using any particular style, without having to retype or reformat. See this overview of reference management programs widely used at Dartmouth.
RefWorks RefWorks is a web-based reference management program that allows users to create their own personal database of references by importing references from online article databases. RefWorks makes it easy to search, sort, and cite these references in writing papers and then to automatically format the paper and the bibliography. To get started with RefWorks, go to http://www.refworks.com and click on the "User Login" button on the menu bar. Then click on the "Sign up for an Individual Account" link and fill out the form. RefWorks in-context help, or the online tutorial, will guide you through the basics. See the overview for details on importing citations from various article databases into RefWorks.
BORROW DIRECT: Delivers books from the combined library catalogs of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale within 4 business days.
Please fill out the DartDoc Form for documents that are in Storage or not in the Dartmouth Library. See the Document Delivery webpage for more details on these services.
You can also use the Request Selected Itemfeature of the Library Catalog to request books or articles from Storage.
H. Locations | Maps | Hours | Help
The Cook Mathematics Collection (books and journals) can be found on Berry Level 3 (Berry Level 3 floor plan.)
For assistance with any part of your research project please contact: Jane Quigley, Reference Librarian, Kresge Physical Sciences Library, 6-3564 Ann Perbohner, Reference Librarian, Kresge Physical Sciences Library, 6-3845 Noah Lowenstein, Reference Librarian, Kresge Library and Cook Collection, 6-3565
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