This subject guide comprises subjects within electrical engineering represented by signal processing and telecommunications at BTH. Apart from the selected information resources below there is a collection of information resources in electrical engineering on the library web page.
REFERENCE DATABASES
Compendex
was established already in 1886 as a necessary result of the expansion of engineering research during the 19th century. The number of scientific publications had increased to an extent that made it impossible for the research community to retrieve information about what had been published in their own field of research. In 1970 the information started to become digitalized and it is from 1970 onwards that we can find references. Compendex comprises the research fields of science and technology. It contains about 8 million references in total and there is an annual growth of 250 000 new records. The majority of references come from journal articles and from scientific contributions to research conferences.
Inspec
is our other big reference database in science and technology. The two databases can be searched simultaneously in the joint interface. Inspec was established in 1898 and it has since become the most important reference source in physics, computer science and electrical engineering. A little more than half of the records belong to the field of physics, and in total Inspec contains over 8 million records, with an increase of 400 000 records each year. In the electronic database we can retrieve references from 1969 onwards. Quite recently Inspec has added 800 000 records from 1898-1969 to the database. They are not available when we search the database however. Inspec has also added full text links to references. When those links lead to electronic publications that we subscribe to, we can open the full text document directly. But quite a few links lead to documents which are not accessible for us directly in electronic format.
ISI – Web of science
is a citation database or rather three databases collected in one. The three fields of science covered are technology and science, social science and humanities, i.e. the classical fields of science. In the database you can find out who has quoted a certain author or the authors articles. This makes it possible to see how much influence certain people have had in a scientific field. Knowledge about this can be valuable as an indicator of what research results have received the most attention. Of course it might also be of interest to see if your own published articles receive attention and are quoted. The quotations themselves also provide important knowledge about the research that the people who quote conduct, by stating their articles as references in the database. Together this can contribute to giving a good overview of a field of science. ISI contains references from 1986 onwards and has also begun to index so called Open Access-journals.
MathSciNet
as the name implies it is a database with references for articles and literature in mathematics and statistics. The content in the database is taken from Mathematical reviews from 1940 onwards, from Current index to statistics 1975-, plus from Current mathematical publications.
FULL TEXT DATABASES
Electronic books
Ebrary
contains a large collection of electronic books in a large number of fields of science, in total about 15 000 titles. When you use ebrary for the first time you must first download ebrary reader in order to be able to read the books. The program is free and easy to access. It is possible to print from ebrary, but only 5-6 pages at a time. There is a quick guide which presents the functions in ebrary. You could say that the books in ebrary are more than just ordinary books. The electronic format makes it possible to connect a number of different functions to the text, as for example personal biographies, maps, translations and explanations of words etc.
Wiley´s electronic collection
Three different full text databases with variants within electrical engineering are included in this collection. They are the Communication technology collection, the Electronic and electrical engineering collection and the Wireless communication collection. The books are in PDF-format and there are no particular restrictions regarding printouts apart from the copyright rules valid from July 1st 2005. Apart from other search options like CrossRef there is a database that contains explanations of acronyms.
Electronic journals
ELIN @Blekinge
conducts metasearches in (nearly) all of our electronic journals. It is particularly valuable that ELIN @Blekinge also searches journals outside of our big package subscriptions, like for example JASA. ELIN @Blekinge also searches more than 1500 Open Access-journals. It is also possible to create personal search profiles, so called alerts. You can for example create profiles with a certain combination of search terms which an intelligent agent runs by recently published journals and gives automatic notification to you, or gives automatic notification to you when a new number of a journal you want to follow is published.
IEEE Xplore
can probably be said to be the leading information source in electrical engineering. IEEE Xplore’s material is searchable through ELIN, but the original source offers better search facilities, and of course the result is clearer when other sources are not included in the search. At present, BTH has two user licences, which means that you can not always enter the database. The database contains all IEEE journals, proceedings and standards from 1988 onwards, plus IEE journals and proceedings from 1988 onwards. Journals are published as soon as the printed versions are published. Proceedings are published 30-60 days after IEEE receives the printed editions.
Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22
