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This research guide will help you get started in doing independent research on topics in Space Politics.
Books, government documents, maps, magazines, journals, web sites and other materials in all the Dartmouth College libraries can be found by using the Dartmouth Library Catalog. The Catalog will give you the call numbers and locations of these items.
Individual articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers are not included in the Catalog. Therefore, it is necessary to use indexes in order to find journal articles. (See the list of indexes in section C.)
Encyclopedias, handbooks and dictionaries provide an overview of a topic and short definitions of terms and ideas. They often contain references to other books and articles which can be used for further research.
Selected examples are:
Chronological Encyclopedia of Discoveries in Space
Lists launches and landings chronologically, as well as missions and satellites by name, subject and nation. Kresge Ref. QB/500.262/Z56/2000 Dictionary of space
Definitions of terms regarding space flight, short descriptions of missions. Kresge Ref. QB/497/P57/1986 The extraterrestrial encyclopedia : an alphabetical reference to all life in the universe
Descriptions of extraterrestrial bodies. Kresge Ref. QB/54/D365/2000
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
(available online as AccessScience)
Short explanations with illustrations
Kept up-to-date with annual yearbooks.
Print: Kresge Ref. Q121 .M3
Web: http://www.accessscience.com/index.aspx Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists
Short articles with pictures of contemporary scientists Kresge Reference Q141 .N73 Space Almanac
Descriptions of missions, with personnel and anecdotes. Kresge Ref. QB500 .C87 1992 Who's who in space
Includes biographies of NASA astronauts, cosmonauts, Shuttle payload specialists, and has bibliographic references. Feldberg Ref. TL/788.5/C37/1999
Magazine articles are a good source of news reports on subjects of current interest. Journal articles provide in-depth information. The library has many electronic journals which are listed in the Online Catalog. See also the Kresge/Cook Libraries web site: Journals: Print & Electronic.
Two useful journal collections which you find by using indexes like WilsonWeb or may want to search as separate databases are:
JSTOR, an archive of full runs up to the last five years of complete journals in select subject areas, including General Science.
ProQuest Direct, a collection of more current journal articles that does not always contain the full text nor the pictures and illustrations.
| Astronomy |
Kresge 1986-present |
| Aviation Week and Space Technology |
Feldberg: Current Print Issues v.94,no.1-v.106 (Ja.1971-Je.1977) on Microfilm v.107 (July/Dec. 1977) - to date on Microfiche 433F v.26-93 (1929-1970) in Storage TL/501/A8 Electronic journal from EBSCOhost |
| American Scientist | Dana Serial (v.15- 1927- ) Kresge Journal Current year only On web (1998- ): http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?db=aph&jid=%22ASI%22&scope=site |
| Journal of spacecraft and rockets | Feldberg: v.8-13 (1971-1976) Microfilm 2043R v.14-18 (1977-1981) Microfiche 994F v.1-7 (1964-1970) Storage TL/787/A62/A2 |
| Nature | Dana (Serial v.165- 1950- ) Baker/Berry Q1 .N2 (v.225- 1970- Current issues in Serials Reading Room) Storage Q1 .N2 (v.1-224 1869-1969) |
| Physics Today | Kresge Journal (v.23- 1970- ) Storage QC1 .P568 (v.1-22 1948-1969) |
| Science | Kresge Journal (v.183, no. 4120- 1974- ) Kresge Micro-film 2015R (v.1-170 1883-1970) Dana Serial n.s. (v.79- 1934- ) Baker/Berry Q1 .S35 n.s. (v.167- 1970- Current issues in Serials Reading Room) On web: http://www.sciencemag.org/ (Oct 1995- ) JSTOR (1880-1996) |
| Scientific American | Kresge Journal (v.190- 1954- ) Baker/Berry T1 .S5 (v.184-229 1951-1973 Current issues in Serials Reading Room) Storage T1 .S5 (v.2-183 1846-1950) |
| Technology and Culture | Baker/Berry T1 .T27 (v.1- 1959- Current issues in Serials Reading Room) On web (1998- ): http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/ |
Indexes help you locate articles of interest in journals, magazines and newspapers. In most indexes you can search by specific subject, author, title and the journal or magazine name. Some indexes cover hundreds of journals and many subjects, while others cover a narrow subject or many years of a single journal. Selected ones relevant to the topic of space exploration are listed here.
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Academic Search Premier |
Index and full text database for all subject areas; covers about 4,450 scholarly publications among the 7,888 journals in the collection. Sometimes current years are not available. Often pictures and graphs are not included in the full text. |
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Applied Science and Technology Index * see also the Wilson Combined Indexes |
Indexes about 390 technical and engineering journals, including: AAPG Bulletin, Aerospace America, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, and Technology Review. |
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General Science Abstracts * see also the Wilson Web |
Indexes about 135 popular multidisciplinary journals, including: Astronomy, Science, Scientific American, Nature, Sky and Telescope, American Scientist; covers all the sciences. |
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History of Science, Technology and Medicine |
Indexes about 600 scholarly journals covering the history, philosophy and sociology of science with partial contents of several hundred more. Records are from these print sources: Technology and Culture, Current Bibliography in the History of Technology, and ISIS Current Bibliography. |
| Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (Last 10 years) |
LEXIS-NEXIS UNIVerse is a web-based news and business information service that contains more than 13,500 sources. These include regional, national and international newspapers, news wires, magazines, trade journals and business publications. |
| New York Times Index (1851 - to date) |
Baker/Berry Reference AI21 .N452 prior ser., v.1-15; curr.ser. v.1- 1851-1912; 1913- |
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PsycINFO (Psychological Abstracts |
PsychINFO covers journals in all areas of psychology. This is a good source for articles on the psychological aspects of space travel. Use the subject term "Spaceflight" in this database to find articles on the emotional and psychological affects of space travel. |
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Web of Science |
Web of Science is the Institute for Scientific Information's (ISI ) system for web access to Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Science Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. The Web of Science search interface features include cited reference searching, keyword searching, and related record linking. Covers years 1945-present. |
| Wilson Web (1984 - to date) All the Wilson Indexes can be searched together or separately at this site; most of these start with the mid-1980's. |
Indexes at this site that are useful for topics in Space Politics are: Applied Science & Technology Index, Biography Index, Biological & Agricultural Index, Book Review Digest, Business Periodicals Index, General Science Abstracts, Humanities Index, Index to Legal Periodicals, Readers Guide Abstracts (Readers Guide Retrospective goes back to 1890) and Social Sciences Abstracts. |
Search the Dartmouth library catalog at http://libcat.dartmouth.edu/, or link to it from the Library's home page. Use the catalog to 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.
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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. For discussions of missions to specific areas, follow these examples, using the Subject search option: 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 associated with those items to lead you to more relevant materials. |
Biographical Materials:
Search as a Subject the person's name for individual biographies.
example: Glenn, John
To bring together all biographies of members of a profession perform a subject search using the profession name and the term biography. There may also be geographical subdivisions, if appropriate.
examples: Astronauts--Biography
Astronauts--United States--Biography
The History of a Topic:
The word history may appear as a subheading, along with the main subject heading
examples:
SUBJECT Space Flight--History
SUBJECT Manned Space Flight--History
SUBJECT Outer Space--Exploration--History
SUBJECT Space Race--History
WWW Search Engines
There are many valuable sources of information in government sponsored Web sites. 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.
Many documents on space flight are producted by govenment agencies or are congressional records. Try Dartmouth's new cross search system for government documents called the Dartmouth College Government Information Portal.
Always cite your Web sources as you would cite printed resources!
Go to the following site to find descriptions and evaluations of search engines:
"Internet Searching"
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~feldberg/guides/search_internet.shtml"Testing the Surf: Criteria for Evaluating Internet Information Resources"
http://epress.lib.uh.edu/pr/v8/n3/smit8n3.html
Annotated guides to selected Internet resources. Browse by topic headings, or search.
Librarians' Index to the Internet
http://www.lii.org/
A searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 8,600 Internet resources.The Scout Report Archives
http://scout.wisc.edu/Archives/
A searchable and browseable collection of over seven years' worth of critical
annotations of selected Internet sites, mailing lists, and other online resources.
Selected Web sites with background and current information on space flights
NASA site
Shuttle Mission Archive
Kennedy Space Center
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA Human Space Flight
Clementine Mission
Galileo Mission
Images from the Cassini spacecraftvoyage near Jupiter on its way to Saturn currently.
Historical material about Apollo 11 from NASA, including timelines of lunar exploration.
Astrogeology site from the United States Geological Survey gives a lot of information on extraterrestrial objects.
Names and locations of extraterrestrial features, and origins of those names, are at this USGS site Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.
The Dartmouth Writing Program provides an online resources page for students to help you with all aspects of composition.
The Student Center for Research, Writing & Information Technology (RWIT) trains student tutors to assist with paper topics, research assignments and multimedia projects.
Style guides provide accepted standards to follow when preparing research papers for publication. Sources is the Dartmouth College general guide to 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 that are not in the Dartmouth Library system (Interlibrary Loan requests). See the Document Delivery webpage for more details on these services.
You can also use the Request Selected Item feature of the Library Catalog to request books or articles from Storage.
For assistance with any part of your research project please contact:
Noah Lowenstein, Physical Sciences Librarian, 6-9958
Ann Perbohner , Physical Sciences Librarian, 6-3845
Jane Quigley, Head, Physical Sciences Library, 6-3564