1. History of
Mathematics
Library Resources
Jane Wu

2. Class Objectives
• Understand how to effectively search online databases
• Understand Boolean Logic search strategies
• Understand differences between keyword and subject
• Understand the differences between primary vs.
secondary sources
• Know major sources that can be used for the class

3. Class Guide
• Getting Started
• http://otterbein.libguides.com/mathhis
• Exploring your topics
• Finding Aids
• Research databases
• Books
• Journal Articles
• Internet Sources
• Citing the Sources
• Using MLA, APA styles correctly
• RefWorks
• Research Consultation

4. Finding Books
• Otterbein’s Catalog
• Subject Vs Keyword
• OPAL Catalog (20 libraries)
• OhioLINK Catalog (84 libraries)
• Delivery within 4 days

5. Boolean search
And
• smoking and teenagers;
OR
• smoking or tobacco use
Not
• children not infant
Adjacency
• industrial adj regulation
Truncation
• CART* will also retrieve cartography, cartilage, cartel,
cartridge, carthage, cartwheel

6. Databases
• Academic Search Premier
• Journals from many disciplines, but good mathematical journals
also.
• ERIC (EBSCO)
• The Education Database.
• MathSciNet
• ISI Web of Science
• Science Citation Index Expanded
• Scopus
• The most comprehensive database of peer-reviewed research

7. Science Citation Index
• access to current bibliographic information and cited
references from more than 7100 of the world's leading
professional scientific research journals covering more
than 150 disciplines.
• Researchers can search the citation data (the footnotes
of each article), taking a known, relevant paper and
finding other, more recent papers that cite it.

8. Citation Searching
Buck, D. 1996
Fraguela, 2003
Doallo 1999
Aven 1974
Denning 1968
Tay 1985
Dan 1990
Díaz-del-Río,2009
Birk, 2006

9. MathSciNet Facts and Figures:
• American Mathematical Society database of more than a
million reviews and abstracts of math publications
• Bibliographic data and reviews of mathematical research
literature contained in the Mathematical Reviews and
Current Mathematical Publications since 1940.
• MathSciNet, the Mathematical Reviews Database,
Mathematical Reviews, and Current Mathematical
Publications are all produced by the American
Mathematical Society.
• Most of the items are classified according to the
Mathematics Subject Classification

10. Search fields
• Author: any author in the Mathematical Reviews database
• Author/Related: an author, an editor of a book or journal issue,
• Title: any word or phrase in the title of a work
• Institution Code: the code Mathematical Reviews uses to identify the
institutional affiliation of an author.
• Series: any words that could appear in the title of a series
• MSC Primary/Secondary: All items in the Mathematical Reviews
database receive a classification code using the Mathematical
Subjects classification scheme. These are either 2 digit (ex: 65 for
Numerical analysis), 3 digit (ex: 65D for Numerical approximation and
computational geometry (primarily algorithms)) or 5 digit (ex: 65D05
for Interpolation). All items have a least one MSC number, the
primary number; some have more than one, a secondary number.
• MR Numbers: numbers assigned to every item with a review. They
are connected to the year and month of publication and to the MSC
code. Example: MR2639867
• Anywhere: allows searching of all other search fields simultaneously

11. Search criteria and others
• The wildcard character is the asterisk (*) and
may be used in all fields except MR Number and
Mathematics Subject Classifications
• To search for mathematical symbols omit the
initial from the Tex code. For example, to
search for {rm P}spinfty, enter p sp infty.
• References, Reference Citations, Review
Citations

12. SCOPUS
• The largest abstract and citation database containing
both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web
sources
• 50 million records. 21,000 titles. 5,000 publishers, of
which 20,000 are peer-reviewed journals
• Quick, easy and comprehensive resource covers
scientific, technical, medical and social sciences fields
and the arts and humanities fields.

13. Need More Help
• Call us at 614 823-1984 during the library hours
• E-mail us too! Library@otterbein.edu
• Chat with a Librarian on line.
• IM User Name: otterbeinlibrary (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk)
• Schedule a Research Consultation Session