PHYSICS 150 Physics of Technology
Library Resources

1.Prescribed Text - on Short Loan

2. Some useful Reference Books

3.Library competencies for Physics Stage 1 students

• Undertake a Library Tour
• Understand the Library catalogue
• Attend "library and resources -an overview" seminar
• Know the differences between & journals citations
• Understand plagiarism
• Subject Librarians can help you

4. Other Library services

Library Contact:
Michael Parkinson
General Library, Room M13, 
University of Auckland
5 Alfred Street, Auckland
Private Bag 92019 Auckland
Phone: (09) 3737599 ext. 85858
Facsimile: (09) 373 - 7568
Email:m.parkinson@auckland.ac.nz

It is preferable to make an appointment (email is best) so as to be sure of finding the Librarian in his office.

1. Prescribed Text

• Serway, Raymond A & Jewett, John W. (2008) Physics for scientists and engineers. 7th ed.

It is available on Short Loan at the Kate Edger Information Commons.  There is also a copy of this edition in the General Library at 530 s49P 2008. Copies of the 6th edition are also available for loan in the General Library.

2. Some useful reference books

There may be times when you would like to read further on a subject in order to better understand it. Here are some reference books, both print and electronic, that may be a starting point in researching a topic.

Electronic dictionaries

Dictionary of Physics. 5th ed, ed.John Daintith, Oxford University press, 2005

Dictionary of material science and high energy physics/ ed Dipak Basu. Boca Raton,Fla, CRC Press, 2001

Electronic handbooks

Handbook of superconductivity [electronic resource] Charles Poole. San Diego, Academic Press, 1999

Electonic Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of geomagnetism and paleomagnetism [electronic resource], Springer.

Encyclopedia of mathematical physics [electronic resource] New York, Science Direct.

Encyclopedia of smart materials [electronic resource]. New york, Wiley. ( very broad in scope)

The Science reference Collection

There are also many physics reference books in the Science Reference Collection on Level M in the General Library. This is a place where you can browse the shelves. Reference books cannot be borrowed. The area is near the Subject Librarians' office.

AIP physics desk reference / E. Richard Cohen. 3 ed. New York, Springer, 2003. Sci,Ref 530 C67

Encyclopedic dictionary of applied physics / ed. G.L. Trigg, et.al . Sci, Ref 530.03 E56a

Encyclopedic dictionary of condensed matter physics/ Charles P Poole . Elsevier,2004. SciRef 530.4103 P82

Encyclopedia of Physics, ed. Lerner & Trigg.1990. 2nd ed. SciRef 530.03 E561 1991

Handbuch der Physik /herausgegeben von S Flugge. Berlin, Sprnger Verlag, 1955-84. SciRef 530 H23 54vols.

McGraw hill Encyclopedia of Physics / Sybil p. Parker, ed. New york, Mcgraw hill, 1983. Sci.Ref 530.03 M14e

Physics quick reference guide. / E. Richard Cohen. New York AIP,1996. Sci,Ref 530 C67

Scientific unit conversion: a practical guide to metrication/ Francois Cardarelli. London, Springer, 1997. Sci,Ref 530.812 C26.

General Library Physics book section

This is on Level M of the General Library at the Albert Park end of the floor. The Dewey number sequence for Physics material is 530-539. (The 520s cover astronomy books). These books can generally be borrowed for 60 days at a time, but if another borrower reserves them, they must be brought back to the Library or a fine incurs.

3. Library competencies for Stage 1 students

Undertake a Library tour

Save yourself time and energy later in your course by attending a Library tour as soon as possible. Your orientation of the Library, both the Kate Edger Information Commons and the General Library, will be so much greater for taking this brief tour. Among other things you will where resources such as print stations, photocopying & interloan facilities are located. General Library tours will be from 26th February - 7th March 10am- 3pm on the hour. If there is demand, the tour will run another week. There will be further tours at the beginning of semester 2.

The Library catalogue

Use the Library catalogue, to locate other material held by the library and to view your Patron record  to renew and to recall books. The Library Catalogue is available in all libraries of the University and on the Internet. NOTE; the catalogue does not include articles in journals. It does include the journal record though.

Library Catalogue introductory seminars are available with a range of times and dates to choose from. Book online from the webpage / Book a Library Workshop. Make sure that you note the campus, time, and the venue, at the time of booking.

Attend a "Library and Resources-an overview" seminar

Another useful course which would help you find your way around the University Library is Library & Resources Overview. Book from the homepage Book a Library Workshop link. This is a popular course which will run throughout the semester but there is a concentration of courses at the beginning of semester.

Know the differences between books and journals & how to cite references to them

Books (sometimes referred to as monographs) are published once but may be released in later editions, particularly textbooks that are regularly updated even if only sections of them are revised. Most scientific books are considered secondary literature because they assimilate and evaluate literature from primary sources such as serials and conference proceedings. They may have one or many authors, but may also have editors. The reference to your textbook looks like this...

The authors of the book are R A Serway and J W Jewett. Its the 7th edition and was published in 2008 by the publisher Thomson-Brooks/Cole of Belmont.

A reference may also refer to a specific chapter or part of a book. Here is an example....

The author of the chapter titled "Magnetic interactions in correlated electron systems" is J.D Thompson. It is found on pages 107-130 of the book called "Selected topics in magnetism" which was published in 1993 by World Scientific Publishing. The book was edited by Gupta and Multani in volume one of a series called Frontiers in solid state sciences.. If you were to find this book in the Library catalogue Voyager, you would have to search for the whole book, not the chapter by Thompson. (Note: a series does not come out at regular intervals, but haphazardly, as material is published.)

Serials

The latest results in scientific research get published in Serials or Conference proceedings which are sometimes known as primary literature because they contain articles in which the research is being presented for the first time. However if the serial contained a review article, that article would be considered as secondary literature, because a review assimilates concepts and results from primary sources. Unlike books, serials are published at regular intervals. One part of the serial is called an issue, and issues are identified by numbers or dates. When a certain number of issues have been published (usually one year's worth, that set of issues will comprise one volume).

Once researchers have results of their research they write up their findings for publication in the form of an article. Articles normally include an abstract, keywords, an introduction, method, result, conclusion and Referenes or Bibliography.

The abstract is a summary of the paper. It is accompanied by a selected number of keywords that will guide readers to the content at a glance. Databases use these same keywords to index the articles.

References or Bibliography. This is a list of articles that the author has consulted before conducting the research. In this way the author acknowledges the work of other scientists. Note that the author can quote text from other articles as long as the original authors are acknowledged. If the work is copied without acknowledgement, that constitutes plagiarism which is an illegal offence.

Once the paper is submitted to a chosen serial, the editors of the serial will send copies to several other authors in that field for evaluation. This is called peer review. If the reviewers feel the papers unworthy, the editor may return the paper to the author for amendment. Only after amendment will the paper then be accepted for publication. This process ensures that the serial contains only quality articles. Journals are rated against each other and alloacted an Impact factor number.

A serial reference is done in a standardized way so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can locate it. This is why librarians ( and you) can quickly find the articles that you have found cited. Here is an example:

The authors are listed first. Here there are two. Sometimes one author is listed followed by 'et al' which means "and others". The year of publication follows, then the article title followed by the serial title, volume, issue and page numbers..

Understand plagiarism

The key to a good essay is using good references and substantiating your arguments in your own words. Reference your essay fully and use scientific (unbiased) terminology. Edit your work carefully. Be aware that although you are citing the work of others and using their results, you cannot copy their articles word for word (ie. plagiarism). The standard for submitting your work is the same as when an author submits a paper to the editor of a journal. NOTE: "periodical" and "serial" are other names for "journal"- they are published periodically).

Subject Librarians can help you

Science Subject Librarians provide a specialist service for staff and students in all areas of science taught at this University. The details of your Subject Librarian are listed at the top of this Course Page. If you need help finding information in the Library or need help with referencing, see your Subject Librarian, whether by email, by phone or in person. The service is FREE. Find out more about the Subject Librarian Service.

4. Other Library Services

Databases

(whether print or electronic) are used for searching for serial articles on chosen topics. The most comprehensive database for finding Physics articles is INSPEC. Another useful electronic database is Scopus. It is not necessary to know how to use databases at stage 1 level but you may like to know about them.

INSPEC  is the core abstract on-line database for physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers & computing and information technology. INSPEC indexes international journals , conferencce proceedings, reports, dissertations and books with links to full-text articles when available. If you would like to know more about INSPEC, please contact the Subject Librarian for Physics (see details above). It is advisable to learn INSPEC by the end of your Physics stage two year.

Inter-Campus Library Delivery Service
You do not have to travel to a library collection on another campus (e.g. City Campus, Off-Campus Storage, Tamaki Campus, Epsom Campus or the Medical Campus). Books and serial volumes may be delivered free of charge from our campus libraries.
From the Library Catalogue record simply click on the Recall/Intercampus button.

File last updated : 08-Mar-2011
Comments and suggestions to : Michael Parkinson [Physics Subject Librarian]