Searches in Onesearch, databases and thematic sites

1. Before using Onesearch: proxy and authentication

Proxy for using OneSearch

1.1. Searching for a source whose bibliographic references are known

Searching for a book

1.2. Search of a resource of which bibliographical references are known: journal articles

Searching for a journal article

2. Before starting a search: Agrovoc

Tutorial: how to use Agrovoc (we recommend to watch the video in full screen)

 

Transcript and translation 

Before proceeding with the illustration of Onesearch and the databases at your disposal, we want to point out a useful tool to better focus on the concepts and keywords to be used. To optimize the search and obtain complete and relevant results, it is actually necessary to use a specific nomenclature, which uniquely identifies a specific object or phenomenon within the scientific community.

To meet this need, FAO has developed Agrovoc, a huge vocabulary of terminology linked to the areas of intervention of the UN agency, which has particular characteristics, it is:

• multilingual: the terms indexed by Agrovoc are available in 40 languages;

• controlled: for each concept, the preferred terms within the scientific community and the synonyms to be avoided are indicated;

• structured: the terms are not isolated, as happens in a normal dictionary, but linked together by a series of relationships of synonymy, correlation, belonging.

• it helps you search for the translation of a term to expand your search results with bibliography of other languages; it is particularly important for searching in databases, where the use of the English language is often recommended to launch searches;

• it helps you know the "preferred terms" selected by the scientific community, in order to be sure to use a recognized nomenclature;

• it helps you know the variants, i.e. expressions equivalent to "favorite terms", to avoid in your production, but which could be useful as alternative keywords to expand your search.

This kind of vocabulary is also called thesaurus.

How can Agrovoc help you?

The interface is quite essential: at the top right you will find the search window that allows you to select the source language; on the left, instead, you can select the alphabetical tab which will show you the terms in alphabetical order, just like in a dictionary:

Let's move on to a more specific example: this time let's suppose you have found "rice yellow mottle virus" in an English text and you want to know the equivalent term in the Italian language. In the list of translations you find two results for Italian: the first, highlighted, is the "preferred term", the second is a variant. 

3. Searching by topic

Introduction

So far we have seen examples of search for which we knew bibliographical references. What should you do in case you don't have these elements, but only the topic? 

In the following chapters we will look for documents on a specific topic, of which we do not know authors and titles. 

We will start from Onesearch and then we will introduce some databases. 

3.1. Searchin by topic: OneSearch

Searching by topic through Onesearch

We have seen that Onesearch interrogates at the same time different databases and shows the results in a single list that you can filter. 

3.2. Searching by topic: Databases

Searching by topic in databases

We have already mentioned that OneSearch, used with the “All resources” mode, searches a large amount of databases. It simultaneously queries all the resources it has available, and shows the results in a single list, in which it is then possible to further filter, then reduce, the displayed results. 

However, you can access the interfaces of the individual databases, for direct searches on their portals. It is clear that you have to launch a new search for each of them, but in return you will receive a more targeted and in-depth answer. 

Databases offer more complex search masks, with more fields for less generic, more precise and relevant results. Moreover, in some cases searching on individual databases is even indispensable, because some resources to which the University of Florence has access are not queried by OneSearch. So the only way to query them is to access from the original interface. 

Let's see in detail some of the most important databases to which you have access thanks to Florence University library system.

3.3. Web of Science (WoS)

Web site: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/basic-search

Tutorials:

•  Help online

Description: It contains bibliographical citations of scientific publications, provides a complete search thanks to the network of citations. 

Disciplines: Agriculture and veterinary disciplines, science, social sciences, art and humanities. 

Publisher: Thomson Reuters Clarivate Analytics 

3.4. Scopus

Scopus:

Web site: http://www.scopus.com/home.url

Tutorial: Scopus Tutorials

Description: it's the biggest database of abstracts and bibliographical citations of scientific "peer reviewed" literature, with more than 71 million records.

Disciplines: Sciences, technolpgy, biomedical disciplines, agricultural and veterinary sciences, social sciences, patents.

Publisher: Elsevier

3.5. CAB Abstracts (specialized in agronomic disciplines)

Cab Abstracts is one of CABI digital library products, curated by CABI Publishing. It's a database specialised in agriculture, environmental sciences and life sciences. You can get access via OneSearch, clicking on the tab "databases" and typing "CAB".

You can also find a Tutorial&support page (https://help.cabi.org/cabi-digital-library-help/)

Let's see how we can launch a search on CAb Abstracts (please note that the interface has slightly changed, due to a update, but filters and functions are still the same)

As a Unifi user you will be able to view the contents of CAB Direct through the “Data banks” tab in the One Search home. By typing "CAB" in the search form, you can click on the link "Cab Abstract plus full text" which will direct you to the database.

As you can see, the home page is similare to that of other databases and to carry out your research, all you have to do is to use the techniques that you have learned about in this course.

·         CABI still offers a series of short and simple tutorials: https://www.cabdirect.org/help/training-videos.html

·         You can also use the Quick Guide on the home page or the online help (https://www.cabdirect.org/help/index.html).

We recommend that you create a profile within CAB Direct, so that you can use all the functions for storing results and search strategies, which at the beginning of a new session will avoid having to repeat the operations already carried out.

From here you can create the profile:

The results of your search can also be exported and organized with specific software, called Reference Management Systems (RMS), which we will see later (EndNote; Zotero).

But now, let's take action!

Below you will find an example of research for practice or as a template for your future searches.

·         Let's imagine we want to carry out research on "consociazione del mais" and want to know the scientific production of the last 5 years regarding this topic.

·         Remember: first of all, it will be important to choose your keywords carefully and launch the search in English.

·         To respect these two criteria it will be useful to write the scientific name of the plant (Zea mays) and to use the Agrovoc Thesaurus to get the correct translation of "consociazione".

·         You will then insert the keywords Zea mays and intercropping in the search mask, taking care to use truncation characters and Boolean operators:

You will get a list of results that you can filter by year and other criteria, through the facets in the column on the right. You already know many of these facets, but CABI offers some that are unusual or specific to your field of study.

For example, we would like to draw your attention to “Organism Descriptors”, which allows you to filter the results based on the scientific names of organisms (plants or animals); or on "Geographic location", which allows you to select resources based on the place where the searches were conducted (not to be confused with the place of publication of the text). "Topics" corresponds to what other Databases call "keywords" and can show you the concepts related to your search results.

Here is the complete list of facets and their functions, taken directly from CAB Direct:

Topics: includes the Descriptor and Identifier record fields

Organism Descriptors: plant and animal scientific names from the CAB Thesaurus.

Broader terms: terms which exist above your search term in the CAB Thesaurus taxonomic and geographic hierarchy, e.g. a search for Coleoptera shows Insects as a Broader term. 

Document type: category of publication, for example, journal, conference proceeding etc.

Year: year of publication.

Source title: title of publication.

Author: includes Personal Authors, Author Variants, Editors, Additional Authors and Corporate Authors.

Geographic Location: location of the research, not where it is published. Terms included in CAB Thesaurus.

Language: language (s) of Summary and Language (s) of Text.

Your Products: the CABI products that your institution has subscribed to, e.g. Global Health.

CABI Hosted Full Text: publications which are hosted but not published by CABI, e.g conference proceedings, smaller publishers' journals etc. These are typically referred to as 'gray' literature.

Evidence Based Research: designed to retrieve systematic review and meta-analyzes by searching for elements in a publication's title and abstract.

Open Access Journals: retrieves articles published in 'gold open access' journals, which are free to download and use. Currently CAB Direct only retrieves data published from 2015 onwards.

With the facets you can limit the number of results and move on to their analysis.

·  Remember that to read the text of the article you can click on   to access the text via Cab platform, or on or, if these are not present, on "find @ unifi" 

Can't you view the article even in this way? It means that CAB Direct notifies you of the existence of that resource, but does not give you direct access to the text. No fear:

-  Try launching a search on Onesearch: maybe you can find it on other platforms to which the University gives access; 

- If you cannot find it in this way either, send us a request for a document delivery (see Module 3) via Onesearch, filling in the form all the relevant fields (title, author, journal etc...) obtained from Cab. 

3.6. AGRIS (specialised database)

Tutorial:

Description: it has been created to universally give access to bibliographic information on agricultural sciences and technologies, even for developing countries. It is produced by FAO, and is the result of the cooperation of over 350 agencies in 145 countries and international organizations. Contains bibliographic references, partly with abstracts, to international literature on all aspects of agriculture; in particular, it indexes publications produced by national and international government agencies.

Disciplines:  Agricultural science and technologies

Publisher: FAO

3.7. FSTA: Food Science and Technology Abstracts

FSTA: characteristics

FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts) is a leading database specializing in food science, food technology, and related disciplines.

It indexes scientific articles, patents, technical reports and academic papers from thousands of international sources, including peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

The database's coverage includes topics such as food safety, nutrition, biotechnology, food chemistry, and food engineering, making it an essential tool for researchers, academics, and agribusiness professionals.

FSTA is managed by the International Food Information Service (IFIS) and provides structured, up-to-date access to the latest discoveries and innovations in food science.

Some numbers:

• coverage of more than 90 countries and 40 languages

• 2 mln abstracts

• 2000 new abstracts every week

• 50 years coverage 

Searching FSTA

FSTA is searchable through the interface of EBSCO, the Unifi provider of the platform.

It is possible to access the database from OneSearch:

The search screen is set to advanced search by default, but you can always switch to simple search.

It is possible to create a profile on MyEBSCO to save searches and manage references directly in the platform.

Below the search box, you can narrow and customize your query through three tabs, Filters, Search Options, Topics:

In the filters tab, you can set time intervals, publication type, and subject macroarea (section code)

Under “Search Options”, you can set the behavior of the search engine with respect to the keywords you enter

Particularly interesting is the SmartText feature, which allows entire portions of text to be entered in natural language, from which the algorithm extrapolates key concepts before searching.

Finally, from the “Subjects” tab it is possible to access the indexed terms of the FSTA thesaurus to search with controlled terms, which means that you can choose keywords set by FSTA as possible subjects to index and catalogue resources: