Web of Science is probably the most important database for the sciences, and it’s very powerful for humanities and social sciences as well. Yesterday it debuted a new user interface, so don’t be startled when you see its new GREEN look!
A newer Web of Science feature you should try is the Author Finder, which makes it much easier to find papers by a known author, especially one with a common name. To use Author Finder, use the Web of Science tab and click the link under the Author line. There are a number of simple, self-explanatory steps to follow.
Another vital Web of Science tool is the Cited Reference Search. This hasn’t changed in the upgrade. You still need to enter an author, journal title (using the long list of journal title abbreviations) and year – and then you can access a wealth of articles that refer to the initial article you entered.
One down side of the upgrade we’ve noted in the library is that you can no longer limit your search to include only the Science, Social Science, or Humanities subsections of Web of Science – you have to search the entire thing.
Have you discovered any new features of this database? Leave us a note and share!
Written by Phoebe Acheson
Just click on the “Change Limits and Settings” link at the bottom next to Current Limits. That will expand the Limits so you can select a particular citation database (the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index and/or the Arts & Humanities Citation Index) to search.
I contacted Thomson Scientific to see if they would be willing to have all Duke users see the ‘Current Limits’ section of the search screen so they would not have to expand the ‘Limits’ to select a particular citation database. Their Technical Support replied that this default is not currently available but other institutions have also requested this feature so they will consider it in another upgrade.
For now, the only real option is to have individual users register and then set their preferences for what they want to use when they search.
Is this the same Web of Science that I can access at my university here in The Netherlands? It looks the same, but has some buggy interfaces…
Good to learn how to work with it anyhow as I will come to Duke for an exchange program 2008/2009!