• Title search: leave off the initial article (The, An, La, etc.)

• Author search: put last name, then first name

• Keyword search: use and, or or not between the terms, or quotes for a phrase, and use ? for truncation (to find variant endings of a word)

• Limiting to books in Barnard Library: use the Pre-select Limits or Post Limits options

• Note that although the Barnard Library is in Lehman Hall, CLIO location Lehman means the Social Sciences library at Columbia

Library Locations at Columbia

• Biology Library (601 Fairchild) homepage / directions
• Health Sciences Library (701 West 168th Street) homepage / directions
• Mathematics/Science Library (303 Mathematics) homepage / directions (in CLIO the location code for this library is SCIENCE)
• Geology Library (601 Schermerhorn) homepage / directions
• Geoscience Library (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964) homepage / directions
• U.S. Government Documents (Lehman Social Sciences Library, 300 International Affairs) homepage / directions

Other libraries in New York to which you have access:

• Bobcat for NYU (Washington Square South)
• CATNYP for New York Public Library research libraries:
     Humanities and Social Sciences Library, 5th Ave. and 42nd St., 212-930-0830;
     Schomburg Library, Malcolm X Blvd. and 135th St, 212-491-2200;
     Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), Madison Avenue and 34th Street, 212-592-7000.
• LEO for New York Public Library local branch libraries:
     Morningside Heights Branch, Broadway and 113th Street, 212-864-2530;
     Mid-Manhattan Library, 5th Ave. and 40th St, 212-340-0833.

Borrow Direct

• for books only - a consortium of the university libraries of Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale
• takes about 4 days

• for books, dissertations or articles
• you can also go in person to the ILL Office at 505 Butler Library; the phone number is 212-854-3542 and the email address is ill@libraries.cul.columbia.edu
• use ILL for requesting books or non-science journal articles
• takes about 2 weeks

Science Journal Article Request Service

• you can request articles from journals that Columbia does not own in the areas of science, technology, engineering and medicine
• articles from journals at the Health Sciences Library can be ordered
• you can submit the on-line request form or fill out a printed request form at a Columbia branch science library
• when the article arrives, the relevant Columbia branch library will notify you by telephone or e-mail so that you can pick it up

Biological Abstracts

• An Ovid database with citations and abstracts for articles in biology, plant and animal science, ecology, paleontology, pharmacology, biochemistry, biophysics and bioengineering, published from 1969 to the present
• Multiple words together are taken as a phrase; for truncation, use $ (environ$ will find environs, environment, environmental, etc.)
• For a Keyword search, uncheck the box next to "Map Term to Subject Heading"
• For a more focused search using subject terms, check the box next to "Map Term to Subject Heading"
• To combine previous searches, click on "Combine Searches," check appropriate boxes, then click "Continue"

BioOne

• Full-text journal articles focused on the biological, ecological and environmental sciences
• Click on Search at the top, and enter terms in the Abstract field

• News and business information from Dow Jones and Reuters
• To find articles from a specific publication, click on "Source" and enter title in the search box.  Click on the arrow to the right.  More than one option may appear; some may be Abstracts only.  Click on the small blue "i" to obtain information about the publication.  For full text, select the option which does not say "Abstracts," by clicking on it once.  It will appear under "Currently selected."
• Entering search terms: words entered together are searched as a phrase; use Boolean terms AND, OR, NOT
• Use the drop-down menu next to "Select Source Category" to search whole categories of publications
• To search a specific field, either select the field you wish to search, using the drop-down list in the "More Options" section at the bottom, or search "Full article" and use Field Tags to specify fields (hd= for the title or headline of an article, hlp= for headline and lead paragraph, by= for the byline or author's name). 

• Citations and abstracts on energy sources, ground water pollution, dinosaurs, landslides, and erosion, as well as the history of the earth, the structure of the earth, the study of ore deposits, and geostatistics
• To include other databases in your search, click on "Change Database(s)" in the upper right

• Abstracts for articles in political science published in journals and yearbooks worldwide, 1989 to the present
• To find articles about American politics, specify USA in the DESCRIPTOR field.

JSTOR

• Hundreds of full text journals from various publishers, from their first issue up to a few years ago
• Useful for historical research; contains ecology and botany journals dating back to the early twentieth century that are not indexed in other databases
• No issues from the last 3 to 6 years, depending on the journal
• Multiple words together are taken as a phrase
• No truncation symbol - use OR to find different endings (e.g., environment or environmental)
• A particular journal or set of journals must be designated in your search - choose the botany, ecology and general science journals

• Full-text coverage of general news, business, legal, governmental and other topics; includes some professional journals as well as newspapers and general interest magazines.  Useful for foreign newspapers.
• Includes access to Lexis-Nexis Environmental, Lexis-Nexis Congressional, and Primary Sources in U.S. History, and legal research
• A phrase is understood even if you don’t enclose it in quotes; for truncation use !

• Huge database produced by the National Library of Medicine with citations and abstracts for articles in biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, published from 1966 to the present
• For Ovid version, use same search methods as for Biological Abstracts; you can switch between Ovid databases and repeat your searches by clicking on "Change Database"
• For Web of Science version, use same search methods as for Science Citation Index; you can switch between databases using the drop-down list at the top, but searches are not automatically saved and repeated if you switch between databases

• Citations and abstracts for technical literature on marine environments
• To include other databases in your search, click on "Specific Databases" below search area

• Includes references to articles, books, conference proceedings, government documents, book chapters, and statistical sources in environmental studies, as well as  business, government, international relations, health, social sciences, demographics, law and legislation, political science, public administration, finance, agriculture, education, and statistics.  Coverage 1972 to the present.
• To include other databases in your search, click on "Specific Databases" below the search area

• Full-text articles and abstracts from U.S. newspapers, scholarly journals and magazines in many disciplines, including international affairs, law, psychology, public affairs, sociology, women's studies, etc.
• Includes major newspapers in the Historical Newspapers collection, e.g., the New York Times back to 1851
• Two words together are treated as a phrase; for longer phrases use quotes
• Use * for truncation

• A Thomson-ISI Web of Science database that lists all the citations used in every article in the database; useful for determining if any articles have cited a specific article or book, for tracing the development of an idea, or to examine the references of an article you cannot obtain
• Limit document type to "Review" to obtain articles that provide an overview of a topic
• "Times Cited" is a rough measure of how influential the paper is in the field

• GPO Access: Texts of Congressional bills from the 103rd Congress (1993/94) to the present; History of Bills from the 98th Congress (1983/84) to the present
• Thomas: Search Congressional Bills Summary and Status for the 93rd (1973/74) to the present; Bill text for the 101st-109th Congresses
• LexisNexis Congressional: Texts of Congressional bills from the 101st Congress (1989/90) to the present; to search bill texts, select Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws 

• CQ.com: Search Congressional Hearings
• GPO Access: A limited number of Congressional hearings is available via GPO Access, from the 104th Congress (1995/96) to the present
• LexisNexis Congressional: to find hearing transcripts, select Congressional Publications
• Thomas: Committee Reports for the 104th-109th Congresses

• Thomas: Public Laws from the 93rd Congress to the present
• GPO Access: Public Laws from the 104th Congress (1995/96) to the present
• LexisNexis Congressional: to search for public laws, select Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws 

A guide to the regulatory process is at U.S. Government Documents: The Regulatory Process
 

• American Museum of Natural History
• Biology Internet Resources: useful biology links, provided by Columbia's Biology Library
• Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement: large collection of Web links on environmental issues
• Energy Justice Network
• Environmental Justice Resource Center
• Environmental Policy Studies: Information Resources: collection of links on environmental policy, from the Lehman Social Sciences Library at Columbia
• Friends of the Earth
• History of Environmental Ethics: with useful links at the bottom
• The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory: part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
• National Biological Information Infrastructure: maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey
• The National Snow and Ice Data Center: University of Colorado image and photo gallery
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Sustainable Energy and Ecology Network: a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC and the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography: University of California, San Diego, with links to research and resources
• Think Tanks and Policy Centers: list of non-profit research organizations, provided by the Lehman Social Sciences Library at Columbia
• United Nations: environmental issues and resources in the United Nations system
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: homepage, includes links to reports, news releases, and an online library
• Visible Earth: NASA images of the earth
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution