Sujet: Web Research Guide part 6: Tools of the trade
De: "Elsevier, Sandra de Gelder"
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:05:26 +0200 (CEST)
A: jean-michel.chapuis@univ-lr.fr

Web Research Guide part 6: Tools of the trade

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Manage citations Bookmarks online Scirus toolbar Retrieve web pages


Dear MR chapuis,
To help you get the most out of your web research, it’s worth taking the time to investigate the range of tools available to help you save valuable research time and to manage the references you accumulate.
Use quick tools and a range of downloads to get instant access to information you need.

Inform someone about this Web Research Guide.

Tip of the week:

Saving and managing citations.

Saving you hours chasing up bibliographic data, you can use the ScienceDirect 'Export Citations' function to export all the bibliographic data of the articles you found to a citation management program (see below).

When you are viewing the full text version of an article, select the 'Cited by' option in the green box on the right side of the page to see all citing articles. If you then use the 'Export Citations' function, you can save all the bibliographic data of the articles that cite your selected article.

If you want to be automatically updated each time a new work is published on ScienceDirect which cites the article you have selected, click the 'Save as citation alert' option. ScienceDirect citation alerts give you regular updates of new work that cites an article you have selected.

To see an overview of all these ScienceDirect functionalities
please
click here.

Organizing bibliographies with citation management software.

A range of tools for publishing and managing bibliographies can be found on
the Internet. These tools help you to organise bibliographic references, organise images and files, format bibliographies and more.
Although most are not free, it's worth the time to have a closer look at the functionalities, since they might provide an answer to your specific needs as a researcher.

For an example of some of the tools available, see www.isiresearchsoft.com

Tip: Save your bookmarks online and make them available from anywhere.

Saving bookmarks is one thing, archiving another. And what happens with them when your computer crashes? If you save your bookmarks online, you will not lose a single one and you will be able to reach them from any computer with an Internet connection. So if you want to manage your bookmarks more efficiently, find a bookmark manager on the net.

One of the many bookmark managers is the free service mypip. This bookmark manager makes it easy for you to:

  • Import your favorites or bookmarks.
  • Hide seldom used favorites, and show them again with one extra click.
  • Share Favorites pages with other users.
  • Search in your favorites page and shared pages.
  • Add a new favorite, simply by clicking on the 'Add to MyPIP' button!
    (See image)

For more information on mypip, see www.mypip.com.

Tip: Use the Scirus toolbar to search for scientific information from your desktop.

The Scirus tool bar makes it easier than ever to find scientific, technical and medical information on the Web.
After installing, the Scirus toolbar conveniently appears below your Internet Explorer address bar and enables you to:

  • Search across online journal and Web sources for scientific, technical and medical information.
  • Search over 120 million STM Web sources, including university pages and preprint servers such as ArXv.
  • Restrict your search to journals - including over 1,800 journals in ScienceDirect.

To install the Scirus toolbar, go to http://www.scirus.com/toolbar.

Advanced tip: Tools for retrieving and saving web pages that seem to
be gone.

The Internet is not static, but changes dramatically everyday. New web pages appear, and, unfortunately, old web pages can disappear just as easily. So, what do you do if you get an irritating 'page not found' message when trying to access a web page?
There are several options:

  • Use the Google cache option.
    Google saves copies of millions of web pages. So if Google can find the web page you are looking for, chances are high you can see cached copy of the page, even if the page no longer exists. See www.google.com

  • Use the Wayback Machine.
    The Wayback Machine makes it possible to surf more than 10 billion pages stored in the Internet Archive's web archive. The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, they provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

    Use this search box to find old websites with the wayback machine:
     
    Thanks to the wayback machines, you can see old designs of current websites:
    www.scirus.com (in 2001)
    www.google.com (in 1998)
    www.altavista.com (in 1996)

Save html pages.
Most Internet browsers allow you to save html web pages on to your computer. There are also a range of tools that help you store, organize and easily retrieve relevant web pages.

The Cache Auditor allows you to view the items that get stored in your Internet Explorer cache, including Web pages, images and sounds. It will organize the files into folders based on origin and you can save any files you want to keep.

For more information, see http://www.webknacks.com/cacheauditor.htm

Useful resources

Touch Graph
Bringing some welcome clarity to the true 'webbiness' of the World Wide Web, this site demonstrates visually how all the different sites that pop up under 'related sites' in the Google search engine are, well, related.

See http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

Gotomypc
If you work on your research at your institute and at home, you might want to look something up in your home computer while you are at your institute.
Your institute may be able to give you access to your institute computer from your home computer. For security reasons there might be some barriers, but it's worth investigating to help improve the efficiency of your research.

For a tool that gives you access to your home computer from anywhere (this is not freeware) visit https://www.gotomypc.com/
Next week: Keep track of your research using search history functions.

Inform someone about this Web Research Guide.
About ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect provides online access to more than 1,800 journals, representing over 4 million full-text articles. Every article is available in seamlessly linked, fully searchable html format, as well as paginated PDF. ScienceDirect also offers a range of email alerts, enabling you to set up personalized updates that automatically notify you of the latest article citations, search results and journal issues.

Find out more at
ScienceDirect.
About the Web Research Guide
The guide consists of ten weekly emails focused on specific areas of web research. Each email is illustrated with subject-specific examples so that you can start using the research tips immediately. The tips cover a broad range of topics, from finding hidden information online, to locating expert directories and setting up subject-specific alerts of the latest news. The Web Research guide includes contributions from research scientists, information professionals and search engine specialists.

For more information about this guide,
click here.
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