© 2013 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Welcome to University Libraries at Virginia Tech! The resources listed on this page will help you successfully complete the work that you will encounter in HNFE 2014. If you have any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to contact Rebecca Miller, the College Librarian for HNFE. Her contact information is available on the right side of this page.
When first starting out in research, it is important to think about what kind of resource you are reading. Articles that you find in library databases may be published by popular, scholarly, or trade periodicals. A guide that describes the difference is available here.
Within scholarly periodicals, you may be interested in finding a number of different types of articles: review articles, clinical trial/intervention, meta-analysis, and observational. In the databases listed below, try limiting your search to those types of documents/articles.
(1950 - ) PubMed is a service of the National Library of Medicine that includes over 19 million citations. PubMed is available to the public and includes some links to full text articles.
To ensure that you will be able to access articles on PubMed, you must access the database from the library website. (If you are off-campus, make sure to use the Off-Campus Sign In button first.) Either go to the HNFE Subject Guide and select PubMed, or use the Databases tab on the library homepage to search for PubMed. Accessing the database from the library website ensures that you are recognized as a Virginia Tech affiliate, and will be able to use the "Get VText" button to locate articles.
(1973 - ) Covers the areas of agriculture, agricultural economics, forestry and the forestry industry, nutrition, rural sociology, hospitality and tourism, and tropical medicine. Contains over 8 million citations and full text articles.
(1975 - ) This database includes citation databases for journal publications in science, social science, and arts and humanities.
Often, even when you use University Libraries databases, you will only find a citation, or a citation and an abstract, of an article that you're interested in. This means you need to hunt down the full text of the article. It's possible that we may only have the article in print, so don't forget to check Addison to see which years we may have of a particular journal.
You have two other options for locating the full text of an article: 1) Using Get VText and 2) Interlibrary Loan.
If we do not have access to the full text of an article you need (i.e., if Get VText doesn't find your article), then you need to order it through Interlibrary Loan. This is our system for gaining access to items we don't own: we borrow them from other libraries, and deliver them to you.
Once you are signed into ILL, you can use the "New Request" forms to ask for the items you need. In databases, the "Get VText" button also has an option to request items from ILL once you have determined we do not have the item electronically or in print. "Get VText" fills out the form for you.
Remember, Interlibrary Loan does take time to find and deliver articles to you. Most articles will be delivered electronically in 3-5 business days, while books and other objects make take longer, 5-7 business days.
University Libraries offers a comprehensive guide to citation and style guides. For this class, you are required to use the APA style guide:
Schedule a one-on-one appointment with your subject librarian if you have any other questions or concerns. Information for all College Librarians can be found here. Additionally, the 4th floor reference desk (Science & Technology Reference Desk) is staffed during normal library hours, if you have a question that needs immediate assistance. You can drop in, or use our Ask a Librarian system for virtual service.
For HNFE-specific information, visit the HNFE Research & Resources blog: http://hnfelibrarian.blogspot.com
College Librarian for Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering
5004 Newman Library
231-9669
Librarian Office Hours in Wallace Atrium: Tuesdays, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
By appointment in Newman 5004
Sun, May 19: 9:00am - 6:00pm
Mon-Fri, May 20-24: 7:30am - 8:00pm
Sat-Sun, May 25-26: 9:00am - 6:00pm
Mon, May 27: Closed
© 2013 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University