Finding Books

Most research assignments should have a combination of different source types within your research. Books are a great resource for doing research. E-books and physical books both fall into this category.

Books differ from peer-reviewed journal articles because books provide general overviews of a topic, whereas articles are shorter and more specific.

Remember: You don't have to read the entire book! If there is one chapter in the book that works for your topic, just read that chapter.

Find Books at the VCSU Library

Using the VCSU Library Catalog

The link to the library catalog will take you to an advanced search. Use these steps to fill in the search box:

Make sure the "library catalog" option is selected at the top of the search box.
Enter the keyword you want to search.
Add a second keyword to the next line if you want to be more specific.
Click the "material type" dropdown menu on the right side of the box, then choose "books."
The language dropdown is right below the material type. Pick English from these options unless you specifically need a book in another language.
If you need a book published during a specific time period, use the start date and end date options below the language menu to set a date range.
Click search to get your results!

Your results will come up as a list of sources with the ability to save links. Along the right side of the page is a sidebar with more filtering options.

The sidebar is labeled "Tweak your results." Use some or all of the following tips to narrow down your results further:

Your results are normally sorted by relevance, but you can sort them by date, title, or author instead if you prefer.
Use the "availability: section to choose what format of book you prefer. If you want E-books, choose "available online." If you want physical books, choose "physical items."
You can use the "subject" section to make sure you are only looking at sources from the fields of study you need. For example, If I want to research space exploration, but the search term "exploration" brought information about both exploring space and historical exploration of the United States, I can check here for ways to filter out the unwanted options.
If you didn't add a date to your original search or if you don't like the date range you used, you can edit the date range under the "creation date" section.

Finding Scholarly Articles

These articles are basically the "bread-and-butter" sources for scholarly research - they're used in every discipline.

What does peer-reviewed mean?

If an article is peer-reviewed that means that before the article was published it was reviewed and scrutinized by other experts in the same field. This process ensures that the sources are reliable and trustworthy.

Why you should use them:

Information is based on research and expertise
Information is detailed and focused on a narrow topic
The peer-review process (mostly) insures that the information is accurate
They add to a growing understanding of a topic by contributing new ideas

These source types may also be referred to as peer-reviewed article, academic article, or journal article.

Here are some of the best databases to use for finding scholarly articles in fisheries and wildlife:

Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide This link opens in a new window
Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide is the world's largest index to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Coverage includes more than 1.6 million bibliographic records many of which include abstracts. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, zoology, taxonomy and much more. Approximately 18,000 records are added per year.
Birds of the World This link opens in a new window
Birds of the World is a powerful research database that brings together deep, scholarly content from Birds of North America, The Handbook of The Birds of the World, Neotropical Birds, and Bird Families of the World: An Invitation to the Spectacular Diversity of Birds with millions of bird observations and multimedia from the Macaulay Library into a single platform where biologists and birders can explore comprehensive life history information on birds.
Biomed Central Biology Journals This link opens in a new window
BioMed Central's portfolio of 199 journals includes general titles such as Journal of Biology alongside specialist journals (e.g. BMC Bioinformatics, Malaria Journal) that focus on particular disciplines. All research articles in BioMed Central's journals receive rapid and thorough peer review.

Finding Government Documents

When researching within Fisheries and Wildlife, government documents can be incredibly helpful!

The VCSU Library has a large selection of government documents. To find these conduct a basic search in the library catalog and then under location (on the right hand side of the screen) select ND Documents - 1st floor.

There are also many government online. To find online government documents visit the following links:

Finding Reference Resources

Reference resources are great sources to provide you with background information or context for a topic. These resources can be dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides, handbooks, etc.

The best place at the VCSU Library to find reference information is our Credo Reference Database.

Web Resources

When using web resources for research you want to be very careful and critical of where the information is coming from.

Here are a select few reliable web resources that are useful for Fisheries and Wildlife:

FishBase: FishBase is a global species database of fish species.

BirdLife Data Zone: BirdLife Data Zone is an online database of bird species.

FishNet:The FishNet network is a collaborative effort among fish collections around the world to share and distribute data on specimen holdings

NPLCC Conservation Planning Atlas: The North Pacific LCC Conservation Planning Atlas is a data discovery, visualization, and analytical platform for stakeholders throughout the NPLCC area.

North American Breeding Bird Survey: The BBS is a cooperative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service to monitor the status and trends of North American bird populations.