Database Guides: Aquatic Science Collection (from Proquest)

Proquest Aquatic Science Collection

Index primarily for finding journal articles. Covers anything related to the aquatic environment, fisheries, oceanography. Includes ASFA (Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts) the primary database for the aquatic sciences. Includes some full-text from 380 titles. 

Date coverage from 1960 onwards.

Types of publications covered: Scholarly Journals, Trade Journals, Conference Papers and Proceedings, Government & Official Publications, Magazines, Newspapers, Other Sources, Reports, Tables, Wire Feeds, Working Papers, Video and Audio.

The Aquatic Science Collection is part of the Proquest Natural Science Collection.

The Aquatic Science Collection is created from a series of databases:

• Aqualine‎ (1960 - current) 

Covers: Water resources - journal articles, conference proceedings, scientific reports, books and theses

•   Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts‎ (ASFA) (1971 - current) 

Covers: aquaculture, aquatic sciences and fisheries publications  - journal articles, books, reports, conference proceedings, translations and limited distribution literature

•   Oceanic Abstracts‎ (1981 - current) 

Covers: Oceanography, marine and brackish-water environment - journal articles

•   ProQuest Aquatic Science Journals‎ 

Covers: Aquatic sciences - journal articles

•   Water Resources Abstracts‎ (1967 - current) 

Covers: Water resources, water and wastewater treatment, water pollution - journal articles, books, conference proceedings and technical reports

Use primarily to find journal articles in the following subject areas:

Aquaculture; Aquatic organisms; Aquatic pollution; Brackish water environments; Conservation; Environmental quality; Fisheries; Freshwater environments; Limnology; Marine biology; Marine biotechnology; Marine environments; Meteorology; Oceanography; Policy and legislation.

Login to the Portal and then choose Aquatic Science Collection (from Proquest) from the A-Z List of Online Resources.

See Successful Search Techniques.

There is an Easy Search Option but we recommend selecting the Advanced Search.

From the Advanced Search screen select the type of search you wish to conduct from the drop-down box
e.g. Choose Anywhere, to search all fields including Document titles, summaries, keywords added by the database and also full-text of articles (where available). If you are finding too many irrelevant articles - it may be better to select the Anywhere except full text option.

Truncation: use * at the end of a word, e.g., feed* will find feeds , feeding, feedstuff, etc.

Spelling variants: The search is automatically set up to recognise spelling variants of American and British versions of words, for example, a search for behaviour will automatically find behaviour or behavior 

Use Field searching to be precise:

e.g., type in aquaculture and select Document Title - TI from the drop-down box to find items where aquaculture appears in the title of the article;

Thesaurus Search: Because the Aquatic Science Collection is created from a number of databases if you use the Thesaurus option to search you will exclude any records from databases that don't use that thesaurus.  It is probably best only to use the Thesaurus option when you are searching at a more specific level on an individual database, for example, in Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts).

Narrow results by option: On each results' page there is an option to narrow your results by various filters.  However, using the filters can exclude relevant records. This is because the Aquatic Science Collection is created from a series of databases each with its own set of filter options. Therefore, you will exclude records from databases that don't use the same filter options. 

To narrow your results, it is better to create another search and combine this with your previous searches.

Combining searches: searches can be combined by selecting the Folder icon in the top right hand corner, then select the Recent searches. Then type the set numbers to combine searches, for example: 2 and 3

To narrow your search to a specific database:

• Select the All databases link from the top menu (left hand side).

• Then select the Databases link on the top menu (right hand side).

• Untick the Select all box at the top (otherwise you’ll be searching every database for all subjects).

• Scroll down to the databaseyou wish to search and tick the box next to your choice (you may need to first select the plus sign on the left of sub-collections to expand the menu of choices)

• Click the Use Selected Databases button at the foot of the page.

Click on the Check WebBridge button , which provides links to the full text of the journal if available, or to the library catalogue, to check if we have the item in paper format.

Records can be downloaded into RefWorks (a software product for managing references and formatting bibliographies).