REM 100 Global Change - Start Here

 For assistance, please contact Heather DeForest hdefores@sfu.ca or the librarians at Ask a Librarian.

Table of Contents

1. Encyclopedias - start with encyclopedias for overviews
2. Taxonomies - to obtain scientific names of commonly known organisms, classification schemes, ecology, etc.
3. Books - use  "advanced keyword" search in the Library catalogue
   1. Library Catalogue Search Guide (finding books)
   2. Research Concepts Worksheet - use the worksheet to brainstorm ideas, figure out keywords, develop search strategies
   3. Citation Finder Use this tool to locate specific journal articles, books, etc. (i.e. i.e. when you already have a citation/reference)
      • or, look for the Title of the book (for a book reference) in the Library Catalogue
      • or, look for the Journal title (for a journal article reference) in the Library Catalogue
   4. Term paper - provides more details on search strategies / techniques for REM 100 paper
4. Journal Articles - databases for finding scholarly journal articles
   1. What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
   2. How to critically evaluate sources
   3. Evaluating Web Resources - "evaluation section"
5. Government
6. RefWorks / RefWorks FAQs, SFU RefWorks Quick Guide
7. Other useful guides: Biological Sciences (check all the tabs), Geography Guide, including Spatial Information Systems

Encyclopedias

For a more complete list, check the Biological Sciences guide - Background information

• Alpine plants of North America : an encyclopedia of mountain flowers from the Rockies to Alaska. In print
  QK 133 N53 2002
• Birds of British Columbia. QL 685.5 B7 B57 1990 (print. 4 vols.)
• Blackwell's concise encyclopedia of environmental management. [online]
• Darwin's fishes: an encyclopedia of ichthyology, ecology, and evolution. [online]
• eNature Online Field Guides - Describes over 4800 North American plants and animals.
• Encyclopedia of biodiversity. [online]
• Encyclopedia of ecology and environmental management. [online]
• Encyclopedia of environmental issues. (Bennett Library & Surrey Reference GE 10 E52 2000)
• Encyclopedia of global change : environmental change and human society. (also in print: Bennett Reference GE 149 E47 2002.)
• Field guide to the common forest plants in northwestern Ontario. In print QK 938 F6 B24 1990
• Freshwater fishes of Canada. QL 626 S34 1998
• Grzimek's animal life encyclopedia. [online] -- Also in print QL 7 G7813 2003 (17 vols.)
• A guide to some common plants of the southern interior of British Columbia. In print QK 203 B7 A54
• Handbook of Rocky Mountain plants. In print QK 139 N43
• Illustrated flora of British Columbia. In print QK 203 B7 I44 1998 (7 vols.)
• Plants of northern British Columbia. In print QK 203 B7 P53 1992
• Trees, shrubs & flowers to know in British Columbia & Washington. In print QK 203 B7 L9 1995
• Vascular plants of continental Northwest Territories, Canada. In print QK 203 N6 P68

Look at the following subject heading to find field guides for plants:

Plants -- Identification
Plants -- Identification -- Handbooks, Manuals Etc

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Taxonomies

Many of these resources contain distribution data, maps and ecology information.  Some have references so they are useful for finding additional information. When searching for books or journal articles, it is useful to also use "scientific" names of commonly known plants and animals, and the sources below can assist.  

• Integrated Taxanomic Information System - Use to find authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes.
  Can search common names to obtain scientific names and classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. 
   
• Birds of North America [online] - From Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.  A continually updated, comprehensive reference for life history information on over 700 different bird species
   
•  FishBase [online] - A global information system about fishes.
   
• Mammal species of the world. [online]
   
• IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species

British Columbia

• Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, UBC, and the UBC Herbarium, Department of Botany, UBC.
  • Biodiversity of BC -
    • Biodiversity databases
      E-Bird Canada --- British Columbia section
  • E-Flora of BC - Electronic atlas of the plants of British Columbia
    • Species Checklist
      • e.g. Birds of the Vancouver Checklist Area (Rick Toochin) [PDF]
  • E-Fauna of BC - a biogeographic atlas of the wildlife of British Columbia.
• Encyclopedia of British Columbia
  - click "subjects", and check out "natural history" and "park, provincial"

Canada

•  Canadian Biodiversity Website - From McGill's Redpath Museum
  • Canadian Legislation (timeline), Species Distributions,
  •  

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Books

Library Catalogue Search Guide (finding books)

Try keyword searching, e.g.

environm* and (law or legislat*) and (canad* or bc or british columbia)
salmon and (bc or british columbia)
spotted owl and (bc or british columbia)

From the search on spotted owl (above), one of the relevant books had the following useful subject headings:

Spotted owl -- British Columbia.
Endangered species -- British Columbia.
Logging -- Environmental aspects -- British Columbia.

MAPS for B.C.

Some useful subject headings:

• Hiking -- British Columbia
• Hiking -- British Columbia -- Guidebooks
• Hiking -- British Columbia -- Lower Mainland -- Guidebooks
• Hiking -- British Columbia -- North Vancouver -- Maps
• Hiking -- British Columbia -- Vancouver Island -- Guidebooks
• Hiking -- British Columbia -- West Coast Trail -- Maps
• Trails -- British Columbia -- 4 Related Subjects
• Trails -- British Columbia -- Guidebooks
• Trails -- British Columbia -- Lower Mainland -- Guidebooks
• Trails -- British Columbia -- Vancouver Region -- Guidebooks
• Plants -- Identification
•  etc

E-Books

All the books within these databases are also listed in the library catalogue, so your search there will find any titles within these databases.

• ENVIROnetBASE - ebooks in the Environmental Sciences.
• BIOSCIENCEnetBASE - ebooks in Biosciences

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Journal Articles

Finding Journal Articles (finding articles)

For a more complete list of Biological Sciences databases, and the Resource & Environmental Managment databases.  For the CSA Illumina and Ebsco Host platform databases, check for the words  "peer-reviewed"  or "academic journals" to zero in on those types of articles.

• Environment Complete Indexes over 1,900 environmental journals, with fulltext access to about 750. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.

• BIOSIS Previews - Life science and biomedical literature.This database contains very useful classification schemes for organisms.
  • Start with a keyword search.  Look closely at the record for a relevant article, for the field that contains the "scientific" name.  If there is a link, click on the link.  Then use the box in left hand column, to search for other concepts.
  • search for "spotted owl" and (bc or british columbia)
  • In the resulting list of 6, check the record for the article, "In trouble in Canada - The Northern Spotted Owl", look for the field, "taxonomic data", and click on the link for "Strigiformes [85564]" to find over 8000 articles.
  • search in the box in the left column for "spotted owl" to zero in on this variety
  • search again in the same box for "canad*" to find articles more specific to this region.
• Web of Science - Science, Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities Citation Indexes
  • once you find a useful article, you may want to click on the the "cited times" link to find other researchers that have cited the article that you selected.
• Zoological Record plus Zoological Record Archive - All aspects of animal research.
  • Again, keyword will yield some results, but the use of scientific names will produce more results
• Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA)  - Biology, technology, policy and pollution information on all aquatic environments.
• BioOne Abstracts and Indexes  - Fulltext articles, from the BioOne organization, covering biological, ecological and environmental sciences. From 2000 to current.
• Academic Search Premier - Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals.
• CBCA Fulltext Reference

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Government

Legislation

Look under REM guide's  tab for "additional sources" to find useful guides such as:

• REM government sources guide.
  • Search tools
  • British Columbia
  • Canada
    • Environment Canada - Acts and Regulations
• UNEP - United Nations Environment Programme --  "Global portal to authoritative environmental information based on themes and regions" from the United Nations Environmental Programme.

  • UNEP - Division of Environmental Law and Conventions (DELC)

Bylaws for different jurisdictions can also be found on the city sites.  E.g.

• Delta - Enviornmental Bylaws

Government & Policy Information Databases

• Canadian Research Index - Canadian government publications. 
  • Try searches such as: environment* and (law or legislat*) and canad* (or other jurisdictions)
  • The Microlog Microfiche number associated with the report will help you to locate the fiche on 6th floor in the Microforms area.  You may also want to search the site of the department that published the report in case it is available online.

Maps

Try looking for maps from government sources and the library catalogue (section on this guide for  subject headings on hiking and trails)

• Tourism British Columbia
  • B.C. Ministry of Tourism - Recreation sites & trails
• City of Vancouver - maps

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