STEM Access

MeSH Descriptors

Last week talked about chemistry.  Today we talk about medicine.  Specifically, we will discuss Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).  MeSH is an example of controlled vocabulary which we is our topic for this month.  Controlled vocabulary is used in indexes to describe subjects systematically and consistently, and MeSH descriptors are probably some of the most widely used.  It’s no surprise that MedLine, PubGet, PubMed use MeSH since they’re biology related.  But they’re used in Scopus and IEEE Xplore also. MeSH were created by the National Library of Medicine and are updated every year.  Currently there are over 26,000 descriptors and...
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STEM Access

CAS Registery Numbers

Have you ever met a chemist?  I find that chemists are some of the most organized, meticulous people I know.  I attribute it to the fact that if they’re not careful they’re apt to blow themselves up in lab (although some of them do have a pyromania and enjoy setting things on fire on purpose). So true to their organized selves, chemists have assigned a unique number to every chemical substance that is recorded in literature.  Every chemical substance!  That’s more than 66 million substances.  About 15,000 new substances are added each day.  (I wonder if they take the...
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STEM Access

What’s the Best Database?

If you have ever looked at the list of electronic resources at Baylor, you can be easily overwhelmed as we currently have almost 700 listed.  Although you can narrow the list down by a subject in the pull-down menu, the list is still alphabetical and it can be hard to know which is the best database for your search. So here are some suggestions for a “goto” database for the STEM disciplines at Baylor Aviation Science:  AAIA Online Biology:  PubGet Chemistry:  SciFinder Communication Science & Disorders:  ComDisDome Computer Science:  ACM Digital Library Electrical Engineering:  IEEE Explore Environmental Science:  Environment...
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