1. BENG1001: Finding information for AIDS Case
study
Lynne Meehan (l.meehan@ucl.ac.uk)
Room 314, UCL Science Library
Tel: 020 7679 2634 Email: l.meehan@ucl.ac.uk
Evaluation Form: http://tinyurl.com/ljwdph
What to look for and where to search
There are many places that you can look for relevant information for your assignment topic,
and many different types of information. You need to breakdown your assignment topic into
key areas to define what information you need and what type of information you need
For example, your assignment is on Manufacturing potential therapies for AIDS, within
this topic you need to find information on: -
Biology of HIV/AIDS (factual, book based)
Therapy Manufacture and Distribution
-Target Market (worldwide health data, statistical, epidemiological)
-Considerations for Building and Location of manufacturing site (factual book based)
-New therapies for HIV/AIDS (up to date research)
Where to look?
There are many catalogues, databases and websites available which allow you to search for
books, journal articles and other relevant information.
Look at the type of information you need to decide the best place to look for the information
Factual book based information
The Library catalogue and Knovel are the best places to look for factual book based
information, such as Biology of HIV or AIDS, or considerations when building a
biopharmaceutical facility.
Statistical/epidemiological data
The best place to look for worldwide health data, such as finding out the prevalance of
HIV/AIDs worldwide is the World Health Organisation (WHO). As part of it’s work WHO re-
cords and publishes data on diseases that afffect the world.
2 resources from WHO are WHOSIS and Global Health Observatory Map Gallery.
For up to date current research
Up to date research is published in Journals. Journals are indexed in a variety of databases.
Engineering Village is the recommended database for your topic.
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2. Library catalogue http://library.ucl.ac.uk
To find a book that you know the author and/or title of:
• Use the Quick search
• nter an authors surname and key words from the title
To find books on a particular subject:
• Use the “Browse” search
• Selecting “Subject” from the Browse by list
• Type in your chosen subject into the box below e.g. HIV infection
• After entering your search you are presented with a list of subject headings, and by clicking on one of
these you can see a list of books on the subject.
• The list of books will show you which UCL Library holds the book and how many copies are available. By
clicking on the library link you can see where in the library you can find the book.
Hint: try filtering your results to books in the Science Library
ONLINE TUTORIAL
For an online tutorial on the library catalogue, go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click
on WISE, and select Engineering and the Built Environment.
Knovel is an interactive e-book database, which gives searchable access to the full text of a
range of engineering text and reference books. Not only can you search the titles and subject
keywords but also search the full text of the individual books.
• To get to Knovel, go to the library web pages (www.ucl.ac.uk/library) and click on the
databases link. Click on K in the alphabetical list and click on Knovel to be taken to site.
• Make sure the “My subscription search filter” is on
• In the search box enter HIV or biopharmaceuticals
• A list of books will be produced that contain the word HIV or biopharmaceuticals, Knovel
also shows a relevancy rating to your search.
• Click on a book title to see what sections are relevant to your search (the first two books in
the list already show this)
• Click on text to see the full text
• For help with using Knovel, see section 3 of WISE (Finding information): go to
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click on WISE, and select Engineering and the Built
Environment.
Hint: Don’t use AIDS as in this database you would be more likely to find books on Rinse Aids then books about
the disease AIDS)
World Health Organisation (WHO)
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3. WHOSIS, http://www.who.int/whosis/en/, the WHO Statistical Information System, is an inter-
active database bringing together core health statistics for the 193 WHO Member States. It
comprises more than 100 indicators, which can be accessed by way of a quick search, by
major categories, or through user-defined tables.
• Go to http:www/who/int/whosis/en/
• Under Customized search, click on “select indicators for countries”
• Scroll down the list and select “Prevalence of HIV among adults aged >=15 years
(per 100 000 population)”
• Click “create table” at the top of the list
• A table is created listing Countries in alphabetical order and giving the prevalence of
AIDS in that Country per 100000 population.
Global Health Observatory Map Gallery, http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/ , can
be used to produce maps showing the prevalence of a disease around the world
• Go to http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/
• For Geographic coverage, select “World” from the drop down list
• For Topic, select “HIV/AIDS” from the drop down list
• Click “Search”
• A list of maps will be produced showing the prevalence of AIDS worldwide for specific
years.
Define your topic
Before searching databases you need to look at your assignment topic again to identify key
concepts that you can use to search. Also to brainstorm for words and phrases associated
with them. This is because you are searching literature published all over the world. By
thinking of all the variations of your keyword that could be used, you make sure you find all
the relevant information you need.
• Remember to include synonyms and alternative spellings and colloquial and scientific/
chemical terms
• List possible broader and narrower terms
For example, if your assignment is on Manufacturing potential therapies for HIV/AIDS,
you could use the following search terms:
Concept 1 Concept 2
AIDS Therapy, therapies, therapeutic
HIV Biopharmaceutical
Pharmaceutical
Boolean logic and search tips
If you want an online database to understand you, you need to speak its language. That's
why syntax - the way you put your search terms together - matters.
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4. Since syntax can vary between databases, you should refer to the database's help or search
tips page for the full story.
Boolean
Boolean terms determine how multiple search terms are combined in a search. Three
common connectors are and, or and not. Sometimes symbols are used instead of words, i.e.
+ or -.
Boolean logic for combining search terms
All foods with raspberries All flavours of ice cream
Raspberry ice cream
Ice cream AND raspberries
Ice cream NOT raspberries
raspberries OR ice cream
Other Search tips
Phrase searching: Some databases will treat two or more words entered into the search box
as a phrase, while others require you to place a phrase in double quotation marks.
• Example: “HIV” will only find documents where the whole phrase is present.
Nesting: The order in which search engines execute your commands is not always obvious.
You can use round brackets to control the search sequence.
• Example: the search term “HIV” and (therapy or biopharmaceutical) will find
documents that contain one of the words in brackets - i.e. therapy or
biopharmaceutical - but only if they also contain the phrase “HIV”.
Truncation: Most databases allow end of word truncation, using one character, such as an
asterisk *, to replace the remaining letters.
• Example: therap* will find documents containing therapy, therapies, therapeutic,
therapeutics.
'Wild cards': Wild cards are characters, such as a question mark,?, used to replace a single
letter in the middle of a word. They are used to accommodate spelling variations.
• Example: wom?n will find woman and women; organi?ation will retrieve organization
and organisation.
Which database to search
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5. Engineering Village is an engineering database that indexes engineering journals and
conference materials dating from 1969.
Search
• To get to Knovel, go to the library web pages (www.ucl.ac.uk/library) and click on the
databases link. Click on E in the alphabetical list and click on Engineering Village to be
taken to site.
• Use Quick Search to start your search. Enter key concepts your search terms into the
separate boxes and combine using Boolean and the search tips described above.
o Enter HIV in top search box
o Enter (Therap* or biopharmaceut* or pharmaceut*) in next search box
o Combine these with the AND button.
Results
Results are displayed in date order, most recent first. If you have a lot of results you can re-
fine your results even further using the refine box on the right
• Scroll down the refine box on the right hand side until you reach Classification code.
• Click More at the bottom of the list (you may need to do this more than one).
• When the entry for Biochemical Engineering appears tick the box next to it
• Scroll to the top and click Include
SFX
To view the full text of the article (if available) click on the SFX button and then click Go at the
entry for full-text.
Emailing your results
If you find results that are useful and want to save the details
• In the results list, Tick on the box/boxes next to the useful results
• Scroll to the top of the page and click Email
• Enter the details into the boxes
• Click on Send Email
Further Help
• Library website http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/
• WISE: go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click on WISE, and select Engineering
and the Built Environment.
• Science Enquiry Desk: located on the ground floor of the Science Library. It is
staffed from 09:30-18:00, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 09:30-17:30 Tuesday
and Thursday. Telephone on ext. 37789 or 020 7679 7789.
• Lynne Meehan (science subject librarian) contact me on l.meehan@ucl.ac.uk or 020
7679 2634 or come and see me in Room 314, Science Library.
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6. Access to electronic resources
Accessing electronic resources via the UCL Library Services website
UCL users are advised to access resources through the lists of ejournals
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/ejournal) and databases (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/database)
available on MetaLib. This will guarantee that you get free access to all the resources to
which you are entitled as a UCL member. If you are on-site you will not need to log in to
resources. If you are off-site, you will be prompted for your UCL userid and password
automatically.
How do I log in to UCL e-resources?
Many electronic resources do not require a login from computers
on the UCL network. However, if you are using a computer which
is not on the UCL network, then when you follow links to electronic
resources from the UCL Library Services website, you will often
see the UCL e-resource login screen.
This allows the resource to identify you as an authorised UCL user. Simply enter your UCL
userid and password in the boxes to access the resource.
Further information
For more information on access to e-resources, visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/e-res.shtml.
Keeping up to date with the library
For the latest news about the library and resources available for Engineering subscribe to
Library News for Engineers http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/blog/engin or follow the twitter feed
of UCL Science Library at http://twitter.com/_sciencelib_. We are also planning on holding
sessions on Tuesday lunchtimes in the Engineering Cafe where you can come and ask one
of the Science Subject team your library questions.
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