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MSE: Senior Design Project Course Guide

The research process is complex and involves not only many sources, but many different kinds of sources. This guide is designed to help you navigate these sources and understand where they fit in the process. These resources and many others are also linked from the Science and Engineering Libraries Website.

Finding Books	Web Resources	Encyclopedias & Handbooks
Finding Journal Articles	Purchasing Materials	Ref Works & Citation Style Guides
Patents	Purchasing Equipment	Get Help

Finding Books

Franklin
Online catalog for Penn Library's collections.
WorldCat
WorldCat lists books held in many different libraries. Use BorrowDirect+ or Interlibrary Loan to order books that Penn does not hold.
Knovel Engineering & Scientific Online Reference Books
Large collection of full text engineering handbooks, textbooks and reference sources. Some of the many topics include:
Google Book Search
Permits searching of the text of selected books. You must create a free account for access to some of the books. Here's the link to create an account.

Finding Journal Articles

COMPENDEX/INSPEC
The broad subject areas of engineering and applied science are comprehensively represented.
ISI Web of Science
Multidisciplinary database. Premiere source for citation searching.
Scopus
Scopus is a comprehensive abstracting and indexing database covering scientific, technical, medical and social science research literature back to the mid-1800s, including 15,000 peer-reviewed journals from more than 4,000 publishers
PubMed Plus
PubMed is the public access version to Medline, the premier database for biomedical literature. PubMedPlus is an enhanced version with links to full-text journals that the Penn Library subscribes to.

Patents

Derwent Innovations Index
Search more than 11 million patent records from 40 worldwide patent-issuing authorities.
esp@cenet - European Patent Office
Full text of EP, WO and other patents back to the 1970's.
US Patent and Trademark Office
Covers all US patents from 1790 onwards. Download or view high-quality images of the actual pages of the patents, including diagrams and structures from 1790 onwards.
United States Patent and Trademark Office Manual of Classification
Patents are classified in the U.S. by a system using a 3 digit class and a subclass to describe every similar grouping of patent art. A single invention may be described by multiple classification codes.
Scifinder Scholar
Chemical information: bibliographic, compound and reaction information.

Web Resources

Information Resources in Materials Science and Engineering
Materials Safety Data Sheets
OpenDOAR - The Directory of Open Access Repositories
The OpenDOAR service is being developed to support the rapidly emerging movement towards Open Access to research information. OpenDOAR is building a comprehensive and authoritative list of international institutional and subject-based repositories, as well as archives set up by funding agencies - like the National Institutes for Health in the USA or the Wellcome Trust in the UK and Europe. Users of the service are able to analyse repositories by location, type, the material they hold and other measures.
Materials Algorithm Project
The Materials Algorithms Project serves as a centre for the "validation" and distribution of algorithms of use in the modelling of materials, in the context of materials science and metallurgy. Validation in this context means that effort has been expended to check that the program reproduces the example output from the example inputs, that there is a reasonable level of documentation, and that appropriate references are provided.
Nanohub
The Nanohub is a web-based initiative spearheaded by the NSF-funded Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

Purchasing Materials

GlobalSpec
Available on the internet from the above link providing instant access to over 590,000 electrical, mechanical and optical component families. You will need to register (this is free!) to access the product information.
- Materials, Chemicals & Adhesives
Thomas Register of American Manufacturers and Thomas Register Catalog File
Product information from American manufacturing companies. Access is free, although registration is required to search the database. It is an excellent source for finding out who makes what.
Google Directory - Scientific Instruments and Supplies

Refworks

Refworks
Refworks is a citation and bibliography management tool. It is free to register for all Penn Students.
Refworks Tutorial
Guide to Using Refworks with Library Databases

Zotero

Zotero
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources
Zotero Quick Start Guide
Zotero Microsoft Word Plug- in
Zotero Server Access

EndNote

EndNote
EndNote is an independent software that manages citations. While Penn does not provide this software, it does provide support to it's users. A web version of EndNote is available for use in ISI.
EndNote User Guide: How to Import References in EndNote
EndNote Tutorial with Videos
Accessing Full-Text Journals within an EndNote Library
Guide to Manipulating Citations in EndNote
Troubleshooting EndNote Problems
Using EndNote for NIH PMCID Citations

If you need any further help, would like more assistance in getting started, or can't find what you are looking for, you can

contact our subject librarians:

Douglas McGee
Head, Engineering Library
217 Towne
Email: dmcgee@seas.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-8170
AIM/MSN/Yahoo:PennEngSciDir

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