Contents for Earth Science
- Starting research: reference books
- Other electronic books
- Finding articles in journals: article databases
- Finding pictures: image databases
- Resources on the Web
- Additional resources, including printed sources
- Help from a librarian
Good Starting Places: Reference Books
Reference books are a good place to start research. They can help you find background information, choose topics, and understand concepts and terminology. To access online resources from off campus you will need a your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password; host provider students may obtain a login from the instructor or librarian.
Encyclopedias & Handbooks
- Gale Encyclopedia of Science
- American Men & Women of Science: A Biographical Directory
- Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography
- Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, & Ethics
- Oxford Companion to the Earth
- Companion Encyclopedia of Geography: The Environment and Humankind
- A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity
- Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change
- Climate Change: A Reference Handbook
- Energy and the Environment: Coal and Oil
- Energy and the Environment: Natural Gas and Hydrogen
- Energy and the Environment: Solar and Geothermal Energy
- Energy and the Environment: Wind and Water
- Remarkable Physicists : From Galileo to Yukawa
- The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Human Geography
Dictionaries
Finding more electronic books
To access these books from off campus you will need your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password. Type a word or phrase describing the subject in the search space below:
Finding Articles on Your Subject
All the electronic databases listed in this section may be accessed by going to the library's Database Page. If you are accessing the databases from a location other than Chemeketa Community College, remember to click the link marked, "Off-campus users."
Journal Article Databases
These tools index and/or provide full text access to articles in magazines, newspapers, and scholarly or professional journals.
You may need to combine multiple search terms to find articles on your topic. Many databases have an Advanced Search screen that has find a form for entering multiple terms.
TIP: When using keywords, try truncating: theor* finds theory, theories, theoretical, etc. (* is the truncation character for Gale).
If you find an article that meets your needs, look at its description for additional terms you can use to search.
- Academic OneFile [Gale]
- A place to start. Has journals in all subjects. Click the box for limiting to documents with full text.
- GREENR (Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources
- Information on many topics relating to the environment
- ScienceDirect
- Over 900 full-text, academic journals. Journals available in the collection are shown with a green icon (
), indicating full text.
Finding Images
You may wish to find photos or diagrams of your subject.
Britannica ImageQuest is a searchable database of more than two million images. All images are rights-cleared for non-commercial, educational use.
To access online resources from off campus you will need a your My Chemeketa user name and six-digit password; host provider students may obtain a login from the instructor or librarian.
Internet Sites
Search earth science sites with our customized search tool, or browse the descriptions below.
Browsing List
- Athena: Mineralogy - http://athena.unige.ch/athena/mineral/mineral.html
- Information on minerals alphabetically, by class, by synonym. Searchable, and includes a database of pictures.
- Oregon Climate Service - http://ocs.oregonstate.edu/
- The official archive agency for Oregon weather and climate data, serving Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
- Pacific Northwest Seismic Network – http://www.pnsn.org/earthquakes/recent
- Contains links to earthquake information sources around the world, including the Pacific Northwest.
- NOAA - National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration - http://www.noaa.gov/
- Part of the Department of Commerce, NOAA offers information on climate, weather, and the oceans.
- USA Today Weather - http://asp.usatoday.com/weather/weatherfront.aspx
- Weather information including maps and features.
- U.S. Geological Survey - http://www.usgs.gov/
- The home page of the United States Geological Survey, with links to sources on geology, mapping, and water, as well as highlightd sites of interest.
- Weather channel - http://www.weather.com/
- Includes sections on breaking weather, forecasts by US and International city, maps, travel conditions and educational tools such as the Weather Encyclopedia which includes information on El Niño, global warming and severe weather. Weather.com/español ofrece información meteorológica en español para más de 38,000 ciudades.
Finding Additional Resources
See a list of printed reference books.
The library subscribes to the following current periodicals in printed form:
- Geology
- Geographical Magazine
- National Geographic
Finding other books and and audiovisual materials
Use the library catalog to look for additional materials
- The catalog page includes instructions on using the catalog, as well as links to other library catalogs
- You can search by key words, by authors, or by subject headings
- A suggestion on where to find subject headings to use in the catalog is given below
Fig. 1. The library catalog search
The Library of Congress has a 
Web site where you can search for subject headings.
When you put in a search term, the results will list terms in a table. Those with a red button marked, "Authorized and references" are terms that the Library of Congress uses in subject catalogs. Clicking the button may show more specific ("narrower") terms.
You may have to do several searches in the library catalog to find books that might be pertinent to your subject. Try different combinations of key words.
If you live in the Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Service (CCRLS) district, you may also access the catalog online at your local public library. In addition to the books in the Chemeketa College Library, the catalog also contains the collections of the 17 public libraries located in the regional library district. You can request books through the catalog, and can pass your search through to Summit (see below).
Summit
Chemeketa students registered for credit may use Summit, the Orbis Cascade Alliance catalog, to request items from 37 member libraries in Oregon and Washington. Summit uses a search called WorldCat. Authorized users have access to all of the material in the Chemeketa Community College library, plus about 28 million items in Summit. Chemeketa users may request items using the barcode number from their ID card, and have them sent to Chemeketa, or they may set up a Visiting Patron account at another Alliance library.
- Summit: http://summit.orbiscascade.org/
- How to use Summit: http://library.chemeketa.edu/information/summit.php
- More Summit Help: http://www.oclc.org/worldcatlocal/help/default.htm
- Help with the WorldCat interface: http://www.oclc.org/support/help/navpatron/ApplicationHelp.htm
- Libraries & Map: http://orbiscascade.org/index/member-map
To comment or request help, please e-mail Reference or call 503.399.5231.
Address of this page: http://library.chemeketa.edu/information/virtual/earthscience.php
Updated: 20 March 2013
