Engineering Village User-Guide 

It may be useful to Log In to Engineering Village as you review this guide to practice these techniques or get a visual understanding of the content. Or, return here to Log In once you have read through this user-guide and begin searching with greater ease and confidence.

Engineering Village offers a wealth of useful information on how to take advantage of its many features.

Have a serious question about searching this guide or the Engineering User Guide still cannot answer? Need help answering a technical question? Utilize the Ask an Expert feature, accessed as a tab from the main menu, to put a question to a specialist. When asking an Engineer, you will even be given a list of specializations to choose from, such as Chemical or Materials!

Engineering Village allows users to search a number of different databases by selecting one or more individual databases from the main Search Page. Each database, however, has its own features and searchable fields, as well as unique indexing languages. When combining multiple databases, only fields available within ALL the databases will be offered on the Quick Search page, while the Expert Search will provide a list of Fields and their Search Codes with abbreviations that identify which codes are available in each database. It is advised when searching one or more databases to review the information for each database as provided by the Engineering Village User Guide, which I have provided a link to in the left-hand column.

EASY SEARCH:

Although the Quick Search is the default search provided by Engineering Village, an Easy Search is available that provides the most simple interface for users who prefer a broad, general search in the manner of the Google search engine. Just like Google, however, the results of an Easy Search are not likely to have high precision, and the quantity of results may seem overwhelming.

QUICK SEARCH:

The Quick Search is designed for users with less experience with database structure and design, demanding no knowledge of field abbreviations and Boolean Operators, but providing fewer search options and more limited results. The search interface is intuitive;

• the top menu allows users to select which databases to search by clicking check boxes
  
• after entering queries in the Search For text boxes, the user can select which field(s) to search from drop-down menus, and can combine fields with the Boolean AND, OR or NOT, also selected from drop-down menus.
  
• users can select search limiters such as document types, language, publication year and more, from a drop-down menu towards the bottom of the search page.
  
• check boxes give users the choice to sort by relevance or publication year.
  

A Quick Search is likely to return medium to high quantity and medium quality results, but for the most precise and accurate search, use the Expert Search feature which I describe below.

TAGS

Engineering Village permits user-generated descriptions of content, called Tags. Click the Tags + Groups tab from the main menu to view a tag cloud that offers a glimpse of the strengths of Engineering Village. Click on a tag to generate a list of documents that fall under that description. Create a private account with Engineering Village and apply your own tags to help you relocate pertinent information.

An Expert Search in Engineering Village will return the most precise results and is overall the most powerful but least used search option provided. The user must enter keywords into a blank text entry box and apply search codes to define which fields the databases should search. Engineering Village facilitates this process by providing a list of field names and their corresponding search codes below the text entry box. This Search Code box also includes abbreviations next to the field names to help users identify which databases they apply to (in the image above, the 'G' in parenthesis demonstrates what I am referring to). However, since each institution subscribing to Engineering Village determines which databases are included with their subscription, GRC employees need only be concerned with two codes:

• c for Compendex and
• pa for Referex.

The only other difficulty with using an expert search is applying the best search terms. However, Engineering Village has a wonderful controlled vocabulary, and it is incredibly simple for users to find the optimal words or phrases to search with using either the

• Thesaurus tab in the main menu for controlled descriptors/keywords or the
• Browse Indexes box to the right of the search box for the following fields:
  • Author
  • Author Affiliation
  • Controlled Term
  • Language
  • Serial Title
  • Document Type
  • Publisher
    
  • Treatment Type

Clicking in the check box next to a term in the Index automatically adds that word or phrase to your text search box in the correct form with the correct punctuation and Search Codes. When using the Thesaurus, each word or phrase you select will be added to a new row in a search box displayed below the Thesaurus. These terms can only be searched using the AND or OR operators to the right of the search box, and can be limited by date, language, document type and treatment type using drop-down menus to the left of the search box.

To string together a proper query using multiple facets and Boolean operators, Engineering Village provides a box of Search Tips at the bottom of the Expert Search page. However, these tips do not include the following important information:

• Be sure to include quotation marks for exact phrases or use brackets:
  
  • EX: ((composite materials) wn TI) will return titles that contain both the words "composite" and "materials" in any order, whereas the search: (("composite materials") wn TI) or ({composite materials})will only return titles that contain the exact phrase "composite materials".
  • Be sure to include the words and, or, not, or near within quotation marks or brackets if you wish them to be included in your search.
• Use AND when your results must include ALL words/phrases in your query.
  
  • EX: ((lunar surface) wn TI) AND ((JA) wn DT) will return only journal articles with the phrase 'lunar materials' in the title.
    
• Use OR when you want results to contain ANY part of your query.
  
  • EX: ((composition) OR ("composite materials")) wn TI will return titles that include the word "composition" or the phrase "composite materials"
    
• Use NOT to EXCLUDE certain word(s) from a search
  • EX: (("martian surface") NOT (mission)) wn TI will return titles including the phrase "martian surface" that do NOT contain the word "mission"
• When using proximity operators "NEAR" for words close to each other in any order, or "ONEAR" for words close to each other in the order you search for them, you can limit how far apart words can be by using the forward-slash (/) followed by a number.
  
  • test NEAR/2 engine wn TI will result in titles that contain both words in any order but only within two words from each other, such as "Engine Coolant Test" or "Test for Engine Performance".
    
  • test ONEAR/2 engine wn TI will only result in the example title "Test for Engine Performance", since ONEAR regulates the order the words searched must appear in the results.
    
  • use '/0' for adjacent words. EX: (test NEAR/0 bed wn TI) will result in the titles "Bed Test for..." or "Test Bed Simulation..." and (test ONEAR/0 bed wn TI) will only return the example title "Test Bed Simulation..."

Be sure to take advantage of the FREE registration. You can make a personal account that allows you to:

• Save searches 
  • All searches from a particular session will appear listed in the Search History, which appears in the small, topmost menu. Simply click the SAVE button to the right of the particular search you wish to store. Access saved searches in the future by selecting My Profile from the topmost menu.
    
• Set E-mail alerts
  • When saving searches in Search History, you can check the box that says E-Mail Alerts and recieve weekly updates from your search query, which can alert you when new material is added to Engineering Village on a given subject, with particular phrases in a title, from particular journals or by certain authors.
• Save Results
  • From your search results, you can select multiple records and click Save to Folder from the Results Manager toolbar. From there, you can either add records to an existing folder or create a new folder to store records.

Engineering Village uses facets to provide a myriad of ways to organize, sort or display your results. While the default display is sorted by relevance, you can select to have results displayed by date, author, source or publisher instead. Results are also broken down into the various facets to the right of the main display, and each of these facets is broken down by rank. These facets include:

• Author
• Author Affiliation
• Controlled Vocabulary
• Classification Code
• Country
  
• Document Type
• Language
• Year
• Serial Title
• Publisher

Using these facets allows you to:

• Refine your results after a search
• Isolate prominent authors in a field or determine serials that feature particular subject material.
  
• Display a facet in chart form or download individual facets and export to other software.

Otherwise, results are displayed as brief citations. You can click to view the abstract or detailed record for any individual citation, or change the format for all records to abstract or detailed record from the Results Manager toolbar.

If the full-text for a record is available, a yellow button labeled Full Text will appear with the citation.

Records can also be tagged, e-mailed, added to a blog, or saved as a bookmark to popular social bookmarking sites del.icio.us or 2collab.

Use this Tag Cloud to locate relevant databases offered by Glenn's Science & Engineering Library!