The recommended resources on this page are those covered in the in-person session. Use the links below for access to additional library guides:
**Account Registration Needed! In order to access CAS SciFinder, you must first register using the following link while on campus and using your NSU email address: CAS SciFinder Account Registration**
CAS SciFinder is your one true source for authoritatively identifying a chemical substance and its related chemical structures, chemical names, regulatory information and properties, including the CAS Registry Number®. A global network of scientists aggregates, indexes, and annotates the world’s scientific scholarly journals, patents, dissertations, and seminal reference works daily to make them fully discoverable within CAS SciFinder.
CAS SciFinder offers a powerful "All types" search by default where you can use keywords, substance names, patent numbers, DOIs, and more. In addition to these options, the database can also be searched by drawing a chemical structure.
If you do not want to search across all types of results, select the relevant tab above the search box to focus your results on substances, reactions, references, and suppliers. Note that the search box fields may change and additional tools, such as Advanced Search may appear as different tabs are chosen.
The CAS SciFinder Help and Support provides in depth, step-by-step guides on how to use the platform that are available with or without logging into the platform. Click the name of the individual search types below to go directly to their specific help page.
Below the search box, there are additional boxes for Retrosynthetic Analysis, Search CAS Lexicon, and Search CAS Sequences which will bring you to specialized search interfaces. There is additional information on these tools on the Special Features tab or use the links below to visit the CAS SciFinder Help and Support page for each specialized search:
Further down the page, the platform displays your recent search history (including what type of search: All, Retrosynthesis, Substances, etc.) so that you rerun or edit your searches.
CAS SciFinder provides a series of support tools that include in depth, step-by-step guides to searching on the platform and using results effectively.
Get started by using the SciFinder Quick Reference Guide - Academic Users or browse and search all of the help resources using the link to CAS SciFinder Help & Support below:
Credo Reference provides full-text online access to hundreds of multidisciplinary reference book collections, including art, history, law, medicine, psychology, technology, bilingual dictionaries, and encyclopedias through a one-stop search platform. Search results often include articles from a wide array of publications and frequently present subject coverage from multiple perspectives. Using Credo Reference to approach a topic from different viewpoints can be a great way to expand your familiarity with the topic and it can help you develop new arguments and observations for your research.
Clicking the "Advanced Search" button below the search box opens up additional options to control what kinds of results your search returns.
Use the provided Advanced Search boxes to refine your search based on the prompts.
In addition, the Advanced Search box includes drop-down menus that will allow you to limit Subjects, Titles, Publication Dates, and Features by checking the appropriate box.
Credo Reference supplies a visual related topics map that can be a great way to explore your topic and see connections that can further your research. Click the links in the map to jump to articles on that topic and generate a new visual topic map.
Click the Hugo Award and a new series of search results will load:
Credo Reference is equipped with a Research Quick Tips tool for help with research, searching, and topic selection to help you make the most of the database. To access the Research Quick Tips area, click on the three-lined "hamburger" menu in the upper-left corner of the screen and choose "Research Quick Tips":
The Research Quick Tips menu has several helpful guides:
A multidisciplinary digital library that includes all 2,800+ academic journals on JSTOR; spanning more than 60 disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Access also includes more than two million primary source documents.
And, with the incorporation of Artstor's collections, JSTOR is now home to more than two million images.
Running a basic search in JSTOR is similar to searching in Wikipedia. You can use general keywords and phrases in your search and JSTOR will return results across its full collection that include some or all of your keywords.
On the results page, the left-side menu can be used to filter your results. Check the "Content I can Access" button to access full-text articles.
Clicking the "Advanced Search" button above the search box opens an new page with additional options to control what kinds of results your search will return.
Use the provided Advanced Search fields, dropdown menus, and material types boxes to refine your search.
JSTOR also provides a Search Help page that provides specific overview of the advanced tools available on the platform. Examples include using Boolean Operators, Truncation, Wildcards, and Proximity searching.
In addition to standard database searching, JSTOR includes several tools that can be used for exploring your topic, discovering resources, and extracting data from the JSTOR collection. Each of these resources can be found in the Tools menu in the upper-right portion of any search page.
JSTOR offers a full LibGuides site of research guides to help researchers make the most of the platform. These assistance tools can be found in the page footer of any page by clicking the "LibGuides" or "Research Basics" links.
Search and browse across thousands of market research intelligence materials including expert reports, consumer survey databooks, industry trends, news, and market observations.
Reports are published regularly across market sectors. They include comprehensive assessment of consumer surveys and link to the interactive databook that the report is based on.
Mintel offers two types of environments, one for Expert Analysis and one for Consumer Data. Both offer a basic search functionality that is paired with a browse function. Switch between search environments at the top left of the screen on desktop/laptop devices and in the top menu on mobile devices under Mintel Sites.
Mintel offers a general Help & Training page that can help with troubleshooting as well as providing more information about the insights and data provided on the platform. Access the page by clicking on the profile/account settings icon in the middle of the upper right corner of the screen and selecting "Help & training" from the menu.
If your question is not addressed in the help center, please contact a librarian for assistance.
Phone: 757 823-2418
Email: library@nsu.edu
SMS: 757 230-2015
This collection provides access to more than 4,000 U.S. news sources, including current coverage and archives back to the 1980s. The platform draws from national, regional, and local news content, including access to more than 70 Virginia news sources, such as The Virginian-Pilot and Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Logging in:
This should bring you to your O'Reilly Account.
As a note, O'Reilly does have an app available for iOS (O'Reilly on the App Store (apple.com)) and Android (O'Reilly - Apps on Google Play) devices where you can search and access content with less frequent logins.
You will also receive a welcome email from O'Reilly after your first login.
On the O'Reilly home page, there is a search box at the top where you can type in key words, events, topics, titles, etc... You can also browse by "Topics" or "Start Learning" which is divided into "books", "courses", and "answers."
Click on the "Topics" link and in the drop down menu click on "View all topics."
Search for a specific topic using the Topics filter in the left panel.
Then sort your results by format, publication date, publisher, relevance, popularity, rating, and date added.
Save interesting content to your playlist so you can easily come back to it later. The "Add to playlist" button is on the upper left of the item page.
O'Reilly will also list your history on your landing page.
See related topics and follow the ones that interest you. O'Reilly will personalize your home page with content in the topic areas you follow.
This sociology research database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus. Contains full-text for more than 860 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full-text for more than 830 books and monographs, and full-text for over 16,800 conference papers.
Academic Search Complete is part of the EBSCOhost platform. By default, this platform will open on the Advanced Search screen. You can enter general keywords and phrases in the top search box or switch to Basic Search by clicking the "Basic search" link located to the right side of your screen, over the field dropdown menus. Either way, Academic Search Complete will return results across its full collection that include some or all of your keywords.
Many of the EBSCOhost databases available at Norfolk State University search huge volumes of resources and using the Advanced Search to narrow your results is often advised. See the Advanced Search tab of this block for more information.
Basic Search Screen
The basic search allows you to filter for articles with full text available, articles that are peer reviewed, and to narrow down the timeframe you are searching to the past year, the past five years, or the past 10 years.
When you enter your search terms in the box, the database will give you suggestions for possible search terms. You can select one of the suggestions by clicking on it, or continue with your own keywords.
The results quickly let you know if it is peer reviewed with a yellow seal and the words, "Peer reviewed | Academic Journal"
The "Advanced Search" option is the default and preferred method of using the EBSCOhost platform search. You can switch back to the Basic Search by clicking on the "Basic search" link located above the field dropdown menus.
Use the provided Advanced Search search boxes to build your search and refine it by assigning values to the "All fields" dropdown menu at the end of each search box.
Below the search boxes, there are a four tabs that allow you to refine your searches via filters, search modes, publication name, and subjects.
Filters
The "Filters" tab allows you to limit your results to articles that have full text available, are peer reviewed, include references, or are the cover story to a magazine or journal. You can also select your publication dates, the number of pages, and specify the publication you'd like to search. You can narrow your search by publication type, document type, and language.
Search Options
These options allow you to select your search mode. Learn more about these types of searching at EBSCO's Applying Search Modes
Publications
On this tab you can search a particular publication. Click the box next to the title, then the "Add to search" button. You can add multiple journals at once.
Subjects
The last tab lets you search by subject. This is especially helpful if your search terms can mean different things to different fields. For example, a search for the programming language "Python" is different from a search for the animal "python". By narrowing down the subject, you can exclude references to the animal. Click the box next to the subject or subjects you want and click the "Add to search button".
EBSCOhost databases offer several specific filtering and time-saving features.
MyEBSCO Sign In:
If you want to save documents to your account, sign in to MyEBSCO first. This will ensure that your items are saved and will be accessible the next time that you access any EBSCOhost database.
To access your account click the "MyEBSCO" link located at the top right of any page and then the "Sign in to MyEBSCO" button to enter your personalized workspace where you can save your resources to Project Folders and even share folders with a group.
If it's your first time signing in, click the "Continue personalized" button.
Because your EBSCOhost account works across the full platform, your folders are available any EBSCOhost database.
After signing in to MyEBSCO you have access to: projects, saved, recent activity, and alerts. You can learn more about these options on the My Database tab.
Dynamic filtering
In the search results page, the "All filters" button located below the search box will allow you to add, remove, or adjust any filters on your search.
Mix-and-Match Databases:
The EBSCOhost platform includes many databases and you can search across any or all of them simultaneously by selecting the databases that you want to search from the full database list. From the top of the search page, click the link after "Searching:" and a pop-up will the full list of EBSCOhost databases will appear.
Check or un-check the boxes for databases that you want to search and click the "Select" button. Now when you search, you will be searching all of your selected databases at once.
Note that when you mix databases, you may lose some of the filtering options that you are used to seeing in an individual search on the results page. If necessary, rerun your search in single databases as needed.
My Dashboard offers several ways to save and share your research. Review the features listed below and use the links below to jump between sections:
If you want to save documents to your account, sign in to MyEBSCO first. This will ensure that your items are saved and will be accessible the next time that you access any EBSCOhost database.
To access your account click the "MyEBSCO" link located at the top right of any page and then the "Sign in to MyEBSCO" button to enter your personalized workspace where you can save your resources to Project Folders and even share folders with a group.
If it's your first time signing in, click the "Continue personalized" button.
Because your EBSCOhost account works across the full platform, your folders are available any EBSCOhost database.
After signing in to MyEBSCO you have access to: projects, saved, recent activity, and alerts.
To create a new project, click on the round + button to the right of your screen.
Give it a name, an optional due date and an optional description, and click the "Create" button.
Your new project will appear on the Projects screen. You can have multiple projects at the same time.
Articles
You can save articles without placing them in a project. Click on the bookmark icon located to the right of any article listing to add it to your saved list. You can save from the Listing results or the item page.
The article now appears in the Saved list, under the Records tab. You can remove the article by clicking the bookmark icon again.
Searches
You can also save searches for later reference. Perform your search then click on the three dots button located at the top right of the search results. Click "Save search".
A pop-up window will appear. Enter any additional information and click the "Save" button.
It will now appear in the Saved section of My dashboard under the Searches tab. You can remove the search by clicking the bookmark icon labeled "Save".
When you are logged into MyEBSCO, your search history and any items you have viewed on the EBSCOhost platform are saved for 24 hours under the Recent Activity page.
Holds & Checkouts
This is not an active tab.
Journal Alerts
You can add alerts to your account to notify you when a specific journal adds issues or articles.
To set an alert for a journal, click on the "Publications" tab in on the Advanced Search page. Search for the journal title you are interested in. Click on the three dots menu to the right of the journal title for the publication tools and click, "Create Alert".
This will open a pop-up window that ask your preferences on notifications. Enter the required information and click on the "Create alert" button at the bottom of the page.
The alert will now appear on the Alert page in your My dashboard. You can remove the alert by clicking on the three dots menu and selecting "delete".
Search Alerts
You can set up alerts for your searches and be notified when new records have been added matching your parameters. This is useful for long term research projects or research of personal interest.
Run your search. Then click on the three dots menu located to the right at the top of the results list and select "Create alert".
This will open a pop-up window. Input any additional details on the search and your notification preferences. Click on the "Create alert" button at the bottom of the page.
Your search will now appear on the Alerts page under the "Search alerts" tab. You can remove the alert by clicking on the three dots menu and selecting "delete".
EBSCOhost offers a full user manual on their Help page. You can access the manual using the Help button located under "Research Tools" in the left hand menu.
Databases:
BioOne Complete is a community-based platform that provides global distribution for more than 200 journals in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
Index, abstracts, and full-text for journals covering advertising, marketing, film/video, game studies, journalism, communication, mass media, linguistics, rhetoric, language, logic, and other closely related fields.
Factiva is a Dow Jones business intelligence platform that includes content from 33,000 news, data, and information sources from 200 countries and 32 languages. The archive has more than two billion articles. The oldest dates from 1944, and 2,300 sources have more than 20 years of archived articles.
Mergent Online Premium includes: Mergent Online, Horizon, and Analytics with information on over 35,000 publicly traded companies, 24,000 international public companies and 10,000 extinct (due to merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, etc) global public companies. Company histories and over 200,000 annual reports in PDF, thirty (30) years of stock prices, and more.
Naxos Music Library (NML) offers streaming access to more than 177,230 CDs of both standard and rare repertoire. Over 600 new titles are being added to the library each month.
An online music reference source, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship. This platform is a powerful resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe.
Highlighted Research Guides: