Library Catalog

Library Catalog

Keyword searching on particular topics involves finding an appropriate search strategy. If we are interested in the ethical impact of genetic engineering for example, keywords might be ethics and the phrase genetic engineering.

To search a phrase in Voyager, we put it in quotation marks, and we can use a wildcard symbol to turn up additional words from the same root. So a search statement "genetic engineering" and ethic? will pull up all of the entries having the exact phrase genetic engineering as well as any of the following words: ethic, ethics, ethical.

Databases

The topic of the effect of various scientific developments on society is much commented upon in journals of opinion and journalism, as well as professional and scientific journals themselves. To access a good cross section of these sources use several of the following:

WilsonSelectPlus

(Full-text articles from general and scholarly periodicals)

OneFile

(General purpose full-text journal articles)

Social Science Abstracts

(Index to the journal literature of the social sciences)

Humanities Abstracts

(Index to journal articles in the humanities)

Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

(News, current affairs, business and law full-text)

General Library Information

Library home page

Interlibrary Loans via ILLIAD

Floor map of Kresge Library

Contact Information

Frank Lepkowski

238 Kresge Library

email: lepkowsk@oakland.edu

IM: AOL: frankjlepkowski

phone: (248) 370-2497

E-Journal Collections

Two e-journal collections also provide a considerable amount of commentary on the social effects of scientific trends and developments. Besides having full-text articles from the journals that are included, these two collections have their own search engines that are well worth checking directly:

JSTOR

This online archive collects the complete back issues of 641 important titles in the humanities, social sciences and other learned disciplines. It does not cover current issues for any of its titles; to see if we have current issues for a particular journal check our library catalog.

Project Muse

This is a collection of current issues of 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.

Thus without accessing the more heavy-duty biological research-oriented databases, one can do a tremendous amount of research on the relationship between various issues in biology and society at large.

Print and Other Resources

The library has many reference works with information about issues related to biology and society. These often provide a good starting point for research because

1. they are written by experts in the field;
2. they give a good overview of the issues involved; and
3. they give select bibliographies for further research.

Some titles that you may find of use include the following:

McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of science & technology. Reference Q 121 .M3 2002

The Gale encyclopedia of science.
Reference Q 121 .G35 2001

Encyclopedia of bioethics.
Reference QH 332 .E52 2004

Encyclopedia of evolution.
Reference QH 360.2 .O83 2002

Encyclopedia of environmental biology.
Reference QH 540.4.E52 1995

Encyclopedia of biodiversity.
Reference QH 541.15 .B56 E53 2001