Contents

Continuing uses for traditional tools

How to find them

Aims and objectives of this unit

Aim: to use traditional printed library sources

Learning objectives:

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

	State which traditional sources such as book and journal references and printed bibliographies and indexes are relevant to their needs
	To know how to locate these sources

Prerequisite knowledge

 None required

Introduction

Despite the proliferation of online sources there are still areas where the best way of finding information is via one of the traditional printed sources. There are two situations where it might be necessary to consult printed sources: when the information is simply not available in electronic form, or when the material may be available in electronic form but for some reason such as expense has not been purchased by either library.

Printed/hard copy resources

Electronic tools for finding information are increasingly popular with  research engineers. However, it is important to remember that there are still printed resources which you can use to find information.

	Library catalogues
	Other catalogues and indexes
	Bibliographies
	Indexing and abstracting sources

These sources are important for older material where there is no electronic access. For example, journal article databases are excellent for material from recent years. But, nearly all journal databases such as Compendex, INSPEC and Science Citation Index started life as printed publications. If you wish to do subject searches on the journal literature prior to the 1970's, you will in most cases have to look through printed indexes and abstracts.

Recent engineering material is also listed in Glasgow and Strathclyde's online library catalogues. However, some historical engineering items are only listed in older printed catalogues- you may need to look at these if you are doing historical work.

Standards at Strathclyde University Library are only available in hardcopy form, and, looking beyond the local library collections, the printed hard copy patents collection at the Mitchell Library is an unrivalled information resource with no immediate printed equivalent.